The department has set out a further revision to the UK Debt Management Office’s financing remit for the year, covering September to November.
At March's Budget, the department announced plans for gilt sales of £156.1bn for the financial year, but this has now been revised four times following the Covid-19 outbreak.
A statement from the Treasury today said: “The government has delivered an unprecedented package of measures to provide the critical support needed by individuals, families and businesses, through the economic disruption caused by Covid-19, and set out a plan to support jobs as the economy reopens.
“This has necessarily increased the government’s financing requirement compared to that set out at Budget 2020.
“The chancellor has already outlined that this will be fully funded through the government’s normal debt management operations.”
The last revision to the borrowing remit at the end of June said the DMO would raise £275bn between April to August.
Yesterday’s announcement adds a further £110bn of gilt sales between September and November through 38 separate auctions.
However, the department said that borrowing is unlikely to rise much further after November.
It said: “The higher volume of issuance seen so far this year due to Covid-19 is not expected to persist over the final four months of the year.”
A further update to the DMO’s financing remit and planned issuance schedule for 2020-21 will be announced at the Autumn Budget, the Treasury said.
The DMO has raised £217.1bn via gilt sales in 2020-21 to date.
The government also announced that it is increasing the net financing target for Treasury-backed bank NS&I from the £6bn announced in the Budget to between £29bn and £35bn.
Earlier this week, the Office for Budget Responsibility suggested the government’s gross financing requirement for the full financial year could be in the range of £393bn to £521bn based on three different scenarios for the economy and public finances.
