Spend now, pay later

With the end of the tax year approaching, Alistair Darling last week presided over one of the most important Budget statements in living memory.

The UK was in the grip of a credit crunch originating from the 'toxic mortgage' debacle in the US. Here in the UK record amounts of personal debt fuelled by unsustainable growth in house prices and the over-relaxation of consumer credit resulted in a culture of 'spend now and pay later'. This caused the UK economy to dive into potentially the deepest recession for generations. The Treasury's response was a list of measures in the pre-Budget report (PBR) costing the taxpayer £21bn and designed to encourage the taxpayer to 'spend now and pay later'.