LONDON: Fast-rising inflation pushed up the British government's debt interest bill sharply in January, reducing the seasonal start-of-the-year budget surplus in the public finances, official data showed on Tuesday.

Excluding state banks, the surplus totalled 2.9 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) last month - when income tax revenues typically flood in - compared with an average forecast of 3.5 billion pounds in a Reuters poll of economists.

It was the first time that the monthly budget figures did not go into the red since the pandemic struck two years ago, but the surplus was smaller than is usual for January.

Inflation, which is running at a 30-year high, pushed up the government's bill from interest payments on debt to 6.1 billion pounds in January, an increase of 4.5 billion pounds from the same month last year.

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In the 2021/22 financial year so far, between April 2021 and January 2022, Britain borrowed 138.5 billion pounds, about half the amount in the same period a year earlier, which included the height of the COVID-19 crisis.

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