Corona virus: Public spending on crisis rises to £190bn

Public spending on crisis soars to £190bn.

Public spending on the battle against coronavirus has risen to nearly £190bn, according to figures released by the Treasury.
The total was reached after the chancellor announced a £30bn package to combat the crisis in his summer statement on Wednesday.
Reaction was mixed from business groups, with several backing Rishi Sunak’s priority of saving jobs.
But some industries in crisis such as aviation said they had been “ignored” .
And politicians in Leicester, where many businesses remain shut on government orders to control a local outbreak, responded angrily to the “brutal” lack of extra help for their city.
Direct spending on the crisis, excluding the latest measures, has risen to £158.7bn, Rishi Sunak revealed.
With the announcement of an additional £30bn, the total is nearly £3,000 for every person in the UK – and more than the entire planned health budget for 2020-21.
It means the cost of the crisis has risen by more than 40% since last month, when the government’s spending watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, estimated it at £133bn .
This extra spending is likely to push the gap between what the government spends and what it raises in taxes – the deficit – above the OBR’s latest estimate of around £300bn, according to the influential Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank.
Before the coronavirus outbreak began, the government was expecting a deficit of £55bn.