"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." Says Mr Micawber in Charles Dickens', David Copperfield.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), UK national debt hit an eye-watering £2.004 trillion in July, up £227.6 billion for the same period in 2019, and an increase of 20.4% over the past 12 months. The national debt now stands at 100.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) for the first time since 1961. This is unsustainable, but it will probably get worse before it gets better. If Mr Micawber were alive today, he would most certainly be feeling very miserable.

COVID-19 put our national finances under immense pressure. The UK took a massive hit due to the pandemic, and this put jobs, businesses, investments and families at risk. UKIP stands for financial responsibility and accepts that without the support of measures such as the Furlough Scheme, Self-Employment Income Support scheme and the "Eat Out to Help Out" scheme, things would have been far worse for many who would have lost their livelihoods. Therefore, it was right to borrow money to provide temporary security for UK businesses and our national workforce.

However, measures like these are expensive and debt is not a gift. It is not free money. It is borrowed money, and lenders require repayment, somehow and at some date. The big question is how. Will doing this mean tax increases; will it mean austerity; will it mean spending cuts?

In the coming months, the threat of rising unemployment and business failures are likely if the economy does not recover. Nevertheless, the sheer size of our national debt will ultimately make it imperative to take decisive action to reduce it. UKIP believes that in doing so, the government must not use this crisis as an opportunity to reduce its support for SMEs and for the "average Joes" trying their best to make a living.

It is wrong for the government to use taxpayers' money to prop-up big corporates and multinationals such as airlines, and handing benefits to those who make little or no effort to work, whilst doing little or nothing for domestic small start-up businesses and the genuinely hard-working private taxpayers who pay for these subsidies.

UKIP specifically calls on the government to enhance protection for UK ex-service veterans by maintaining and increasing funding for their housing, health care, education, re-training and permanently housing those homeless ex-servicemen who are rough sleeping in the street.

UKIP believes there are many practical ways that the government could rapidly reduce the national debt, some of which have been UKIP policy for many years. Here are just a few of them:

· Save over £100 billion by scrapping the unaffordable HS2 vanity project.

· Scrap the Foreign Aid budget target of 0.7% of Gross National Income. This would return a huge sum to HM Treasury and help our own citizens in our own country.

· End' health tourism' by foreign nationals. All new arrivals, migrants and visitors to the UK including workers on permits and students should have private health insurance until they have paid NI for five years (unless specific reciprocal agreements are in place).

· Migrants and foreign nationals resident in the UK should have no right to claim public housing or State benefits until they have contributed financially to the UK exchequer by paying tax and National Insurance for at least five years.

· Defund politically inspired NGOs and Quangos. If these cannot make a sound business case to raise money in the open market, the government should not keep them afloat with taxpayer subsidies.

· Compel HMRC to investigate big corporate businesses, overseas domiciled firms and public sector bodies that avoid paying UK tax and oblige them to make their fair contribution to the national exchequer.

· Shut down the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (£18.5 million p.a.) and the Government Equalities Office (£18 million p.a.). This would save some £36.5 million per annum.

· Break up and sell-off Channel 4 and the bulk of the BBC to commercial interests. This would result in a huge windfall payment to HM Treasury.

· Stop providing free board and lodging to illegal immigrants in four-star rated hotels, and cancel the £4 billion ten-year contract allegedly just awarded to an outsourcing company to process them in huge numbers.

· Scrap the costly Climate Change Act (2008), which requires the UK to achieve unrealistic annual decarbonisation rates of more than 5%.

Carrying out the above changes would quickly remove a huge financial burden from HM Treasury and would directly help hard-pressed UK taxpayers.

Steve Grimes

UKIP Finance and Markets Spokesman