Britain's finances showed an improvement last month as stronger economic growth and a recovering housing market boosted tax revenues, official data showed on Thursday.
The deficit fell to 8.078 billion pounds, based on a widely used measure which strips out some of the effects of Britain's bank bailouts, from 8.242 billion in October 2012.
The improvement came despite an unexpected decision by the Office for National Statistics this week that the government's sale of 2 billion pounds of shares in Royal Mail should not reduce headline government borrowing.
That helped push Britain's total net public debt, excluding the direct costs of bailing out the country's banks, to 1.207 trillion pounds or 75.4 percent of GDP, the highest percentage for the month of October on record.
Economists polled by Reuters before the ONS' classification decision had forecast a deficit of 7.25 billion pounds.
A sharp economic upturn this year means the government looks comfortably on track to beat its target to borrow no more than 120 billion pounds, or 7.5 percent of GDP, this year.
After several years of disappointing growth and rising borrowing, Britain's finance minister George Osborne will be able to point to a slew of upbeat data when he announces a half-yearly budget updated on Dec 5.
Source: Reuters
