Austerity through to successive extraordinarily expensive and damaging crises has left the UK with an enormous debt burden.

從緊縮政策到接二連三代價高昂、破壞性極大的危機，英國背上了沉重的債務負擔。

Compared to our friends here, or here, or in fact in any major advanced economy, national debt in the UK has ballooned the most since COVID.

與我們這裡的朋友相比，或與這裡的朋友相比，或事實上與任何主要發達經濟體相比，英國的國債都是 COVID 以來膨脹得最厲害的。

But it's not just borrowing that's an issue.

但問題不僅僅在於借貸。

Look at tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, basically the share of the country's output that the government takes to pay for what the public needs.

稅收收入佔國內生產總值的百分比，基本上是指政府為滿足公眾需求而收取的國家產出份額。

It's almost as high as when what the public mostly needed were bomb shelters.

這幾乎與公眾最需要的防空洞一樣高。

And in an election year, that's a massive problem for whoever's tasked with writing a new spending plan.

在大選年，這對負責制定新支出計劃的人來說是個大問題。

Can't raise taxes, can't really let debt go much higher, and yet public services are crying out for more money.

不能加稅，不能讓債務繼續增加，但公共服務卻需要更多的錢。

Britain's appointed as many prime ministers in the last five years as Taylor Swift's released re-recorded studio albums, four, to be precise.

英國在過去五年中任命的首相數量與泰勒絲發行的錄音室重錄專輯數量一樣多，準確地說，是四張。

So the question is, can a new UK government fix a problem its predecessors couldn't?

那麼問題來了，英國新政府能解決前任政府無法解決的問題嗎？

The next government is inheriting an incredibly difficult legacy, the burden of taxes on the economy at a 70-year high.

下屆政府繼承的是一份無比艱難的遺產，經濟稅收負擔達到了 70 年來的新高。

Public services are creaking at the seams, record waiting lists in the National Health Service.

公共服務吱吱作響，國民健康服務的候診人數創下新高。

Parts of the justice system have had nearly a halving of the number of courts that are operating.

部分司法系統的法院數量減少了近一半。

You get the picture, and it's not a pretty one.

你明白了吧，這可不是什麼好事。

Some of this is down to government spending during the pandemic, which was bigger than any G7 economy as a share of GDP, bar the US.

其中部分原因在於疫情期間的政府支出，除美國外，政府支出佔國內生產總值的比重超過了七國集團中任何一個經濟體。

We are providing £280bn to get our country through coronavirus.

我們將提供 2800 億英鎊，幫助我們的國家渡過新冠病毒的難關。

But here's the thing, most of that money was borrowed from creditors when interest rates were down around here.

但問題是，這些錢大部分是在利率下降時從債權人那裡借來的。

At historic lows, and repayments were expected to be relatively manageable.

處於歷史最低水平，還款預期也相對可控。

And they might have been, but then...

他們可能是，但後來......

The Russian assault has begun.

俄羅斯的進攻已經開始。

The largest invasion of a neighbouring country in Europe since World War II.

二戰以來對歐洲鄰國最大規模的入侵。

The invasion triggered an energy crisis as Europe's access to vital Russian oil and gas was choked by sanctions and trade restrictions.

由於制裁和貿易限制，歐洲無法獲得重要的俄羅斯石油和天然氣，入侵引發了一場能源危機。

UK households will pay almost triple the price to keep their homes this winter compared with a year ago.

與一年前相比，英國家庭今年冬天的保暖費用將增加近兩倍。

We're in the middle of a national emergency.

我們正處於國家緊急狀態。

People are really scared, and families don't know if they can warm their homes this winter.

人們真的很害怕，家家戶戶都不知道今年冬天能否取暖。

The cost of living began to soar, and the UK was once again the second most generous with financial support, behind only Italy.

生活成本開始飆升，英國再次成為僅次於意大利的第二大資助國。

Overall, £400bn or so in additional spending, all of which went into debt, and all of which gave us the biggest increase in debt as a share of our economy, of any G7 economy.

總的來說，4000 億英鎊左右的額外支出，全部變成了債務，所有這些都使我們的債務在經濟中所佔的比重，在七國集團經濟體中增幅最大。

The twin impacts of the pandemic and the energy crisis pushed our inflation rate to new highs and forced central banks to ramp up the interest rate in an effort to halt it.

疫情和能源危機的雙重影響將我們的通脹率推向新高，迫使各國央行提高利率以阻止通脹。

And if you're lucky enough to own your own home, you may remember that time your mortgage payments went up by hundreds of pounds a month, seemingly overnight.

如果你有幸擁有自己的房子，你可能還記得有一次你的按揭貸款似乎在一夜之間每月增加了數百英鎊。

Well, this is why.

這就是原因。

But for the UK government, it wasn't repayments for a lovely house, but for hundreds of billions of pounds of national debt.

但對英國政府來說，這不是在償還一棟漂亮的房子，而是在償還數千億英鎊的國債。

The combination of those two events has increased how much it costs to pay for our debt from about £40bn a year to about £100bn a year.

這兩件事加在一起，使我們的債務成本從每年約 400 億英鎊增加到每年約 1000 億英鎊。

That £60bn increase in spending just on debt interest is equivalent to the entire defence budget.

僅債務利息支出增加的 600 億英鎊就相當於整個國防預算。

As a result, there are tens of billions fewer pounds left to spend on anything else, from health to police to defence.

所以，從衛生到警察再到國防，可用於其他方面的資金減少了數百億英鎊。

But the extra borrowing on those crises didn't come with faster growth.

但這些危機帶來的額外借款並沒有帶來更快的增長。

In fact, the UK economy has barely expanded past pre-pandemic levels.

事實上，英國經濟的增長幾乎沒有超過疫情前的水準。

You can see here, only Germany's grown less than the UK in that time, as it was so dependent on cheap Russian gas that it faced an existential crisis when the taps were turned off.

你可以看到，在這段時間裡，只有德國的增長速度低於英國，因為它對俄羅斯廉價天然氣的依賴程度太高，一旦關閉水龍頭，它就會面臨生存危機。

Germany's also spending a far lower proportion of its GDP on servicing its debt, though.

不過，德國用於償還債務的支出佔國內生產總值的比例也要低得多。

So the challenge to the new government is, how do you pay off a huge pile of debt without raising taxes or borrowing or squeezing public services even harder?

所以，新政府面臨的挑戰是，如何在不加稅、不借貸、不進一步擠壓公共服務的情況下償還一大堆債務？

Well, one of the best ways to grow an economy is to make a nation more productive.

那麼，發展經濟的最佳途徑之一就是提高國家的生產力。

What happens with improving productivity is that for the same amount of work, you get more out of it.

提高生產率的意義在於，同樣的工作量，你能得到更多的回報。

It doesn't mean what many people think it means, which is just that you have to work harder.

它並不像很多人認為的那樣，只是意味著你必須更加努力。

If you are working in an old-fashioned newspaper and you move to a tech company, the tech company is more profitable, has greater margins, and you could work less hard,

如果你在一家老式報社工作，而你轉到了一家科技公司，那麼科技公司的利潤更高，利潤空間更大，你的工作強度可能更低，

but your contribution in terms of productivity to the economy could be greater because effectively you're working smarter.

但你對經濟的生產力貢獻可能更大，因為實際上你工作得更聰明。

In the wake of Brexit and COVID, the UK is in a unique position here.

在英國脫歐和 COVID 之後，英國在這方面處於獨特的地位。

We did inherit a situation where output per head, productivity in the economy, had already been weakening quite dramatically after the global financial crisis in 2008, 2009.

在 2008 年和 2009 年的全球金融危機之後，我們確實繼承了人均產出和經濟生產率大幅下降的局面。

Which you can see here, altering a trend that had been in motion since the 1970s.

你可以在這裡看到，這改變了自 1970 年代以來的趨勢。

You then had the impact of Brexit, which had a particularly sharp effect on investment, which we saw feed almost immediately into growth and again, pulling down our overall efficiency, our output per head.

隨後，英國脫歐對投資產生了特別嚴重的影響，我們看到投資幾乎立即轉化為經濟增長，並再次拉低了我們的整體效率和人均產出。

And then COVID has added this extra legacy.

然後，COVID 又增加了這一額外的遺產。

Which means we need our heads to be working even smarter.

這意味著我們需要更聰明的頭腦。

But for the time being, we need bodies too in the workforce.

但目前，我們的勞動力隊伍也需要身體。

And here we have another problem.

這裡還有一個問題。

Across the major advanced economies, every country saw an increase in the proportion of people finding jobs and going into the workforce, or trying to, after the pandemic.

在主要的發達經濟體中，每個國家在疫情後找到工作和加入勞動力隊伍或試圖加入勞動力隊伍的人口比例都有所增加。

But look at the UK.

但看看英國。

We lost workers.

我們失去了勞動力。

More people fell into long-term sickness and people just dropped out.

更多人陷入長期疾病，有些人則完全退出了。

There's a million people, in a sense, missing from the labour force, many of them claiming disability benefit or sitting on NHS waiting lists.

從某種意義上說，有一百萬人從勞動力大軍中消失了，他們中的許多人都在申領殘疾補助金或在國家醫療服務系統的等候名單上。

One of the drivers of growth over the last decade or two, prior to the pandemic, had been the increase in the participation rate.

在疫情之前，過去一二十年的增長動力之一是參與率的提高。

So the proportion of people able to work, actually doing so.

也就是說，能夠工作的人的比例實際上在增長。

By going into reverse, that has caused a very particular British problem.

這種情況的逆轉導致了一個非常特殊的英國問題。

Participation has not come back since the lockdowns.

自封城以來，參與率一直沒有恢復。

That represents a loss of missing productive capacity.

這意味著生產能力的缺失。

This is all monumental pressure for the next government to withstand and relieve.

這都是下屆政府需要承受和緩解的巨大壓力。

They need to get the population able to work, doing so, and in a more productive capacity.

他們需要讓有工作能力的人從事工作，並提高工作效率。

Then there's wiggle room to deal with high interest rates and bring down national debt, freeing up tax revenue to bolster public services and support the people unable to work in the first place.

這樣就有了應對高利率和降低國債的迴旋餘地，可以騰出稅收來加強公共服務，支持那些原本就無法工作的人。

Everyone agrees this is an enormous challenge, but if it's one a new government can pull off, the potential gains are massive.

每個人都認為這是一項巨大的挑戰，但如果新政府能夠完成這項挑戰，潛在的收益將是巨大的。