Governments generally borrow money by selling bonds to big investors, such as pension funds. UK government bonds are known as gilts.
The yield on the 10-year gilt – the interest rate at which the government pays back a decade-long loan to investors – dropped marginally to 4.87% on Tuesday, having risen to nearly 4.9% on Monday, its highest level for 17 years.
Meanwhile, the 30-year gilt yield edged down to 5.42% from 5.44% on Monday, its highest in 27 years.
Government debt costs in Germany, France, Spain and Italy have also been rising. Experts say investors are predicting US president-elect Donald Trump’s tariffs will increase US inflation, meaning interest rates will remain high there and elsewhere.
“It’s been a relatively dramatic couple of weeks for the gilts markets and for the pound,” Nina Skero, chief executive of the Centre for Economics and Business Research, told the BBC.
“It’s been somewhat of a worldwide phenomenon, but it seems to be particularly intense in the UK.”
She pinned the UK’s specific problems on a “delayed response to the very heavy tax and spend in the Budget”, adding that “we’re going to have to wait some months, maybe even some quarters, to see the real impact”.
Economists and retailers have said measures introduced in the Budget, such as the increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions, will spur inflation.
However, Ms Skero added the 2022 market reaction to former Prime Minister Liz Truss’ “mini” Budget was still greater in terms of “magnitude”.
“And that situation was entirely UK-focused.”
