A sell-off in UK government bonds intensified on Thursday, as investor worries over additional debt in chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget pushed UK borrowing costs to their highest level of the year.
The yield on the 10-year gilt was up 0.09 percentage points to 4.44 per cent, having earlier climbed above 4.50 per cent. The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.286 against the US dollar, its lowest in more than two months.
With government bond prices falling, Reeves said that the Labour government’s “number one commitment” was to economic and fiscal stability, insisting on Bloomberg TV that she had put in place robust fiscal rules and that there would be a “significant fiscal consolidation”.