智库“共同财富”（Common Wealth）表示，英国因坚持僵化的国家会计规则，阻止了政府下属的独立机构自行举债，从而浪费了在基础设施领域投资数十亿英镑的机会。
By Philip Aldrick Britain is wasting an opportunity to invest billions of pounds in infrastructure by sticking to rigid national accounting rules that prevent arms-length government bodies from borrowing on their own account, the Common Wealth think tank said.
这家中间偏左的智库指出，改用欧洲通行的会计制度将终结英国“自找的国际异类地位”，并允许像英国能源公司（GB Energy）这样的公共企业筹集资金，用于紧迫的资本支出。
Switching to the system used across Europe would end the UK’s “self-inflicted status as an international outlier” and let public corporations like GB Energy raise money for urgent capital spending, the left-of-center think tank said.
在一份主张改变英国对国家支持机构会计核算方式的报告中，该智库建议政府效仿法国和德国，将公共企业的借款排除在国家账目之外。
In a paper arguing for a change to the way Britain accounts for state-backed organizations, it said the government should copy countries like France and Germany by keeping public corporation borrowing off the national books.
在安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）首相周二于利物浦举行的工党大会上发表讲话前，各方提出了这一呼吁。他和财政大臣约翰·希利（John Healey）正面临10月28日预算案的严峻挑战，因为他们主要的财政规则——税收必须覆盖日常支出，且净债务占GDP比重接近94%（这是20世纪60年代初以来的最高水平）——几乎没有留下任何回旋余地。
The plea comes ahead of Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s speech to the Labour Party’s conference in Liverpool on Tuesday. He and Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey are facing a challenging budget on Oct. 28, with little room against their main fiscal rule that taxes must cover day-to-day spending and net debt at almost 94% of GDP — levels last seen in the early 1960s.
法国国家能源巨头法国电力公司（EDF）和德国复兴信贷银行（KfW）均在市场上自行筹集债务，但这些债务均未出现在财政数据中。据“共同财富”测算，这种安排使法国政府的债务占GDP比重降低了2.8个百分点，德国则降低了10.7个百分点。
Both France’s national energy giant EDF and Germany’s KfW development bank raise their own debt in the market but none appears in the fiscal numbers. The arrangement reduces the French government’s debt-to-GDP ratio by 2.8 percentage points and Germany’s by 10.7 points, Common Wealth calculated.
提高英国的投资水平是政府增长战略的核心。希利的前任雷切尔·里夫斯（Rachel Reeves）通过将目标转向公共部门净金融负债而非净债务，为投资借款创造了额外空间。根据这一衡量标准，如果政府借款通过国家财富基金（National Wealth Fund）等公共金融机构以贷款形式流向私营部门，那么这笔借款将不再计入政府债务。
Raising Britain’s investment level is at the center of the government’s growth strategy. Healey’s predecessor Rachel Reeves created extra space for borrowing to invest by targeting public sector net financial liabilities rather than net debt. Under that measure, government borrowing disappears if it is channeled as a loan to the private sector through a public financial corporation like the National Wealth Fund.
《Common Wealth》杂志指出，政府现在应该进一步采取措施，允许像GB Energy这样的国有企业以及国家财富基金（National Wealth Fund）“在资本市场上独立借款，以用于额外的投资，而不会给国家财政带来负担”。这些企业可以发行债券，其债券的偿还资金来源于相关项目的收入。在目前的制度下，它们只能通过政府先行借款后再将资金转贷给其他实体。
Common Wealth said the government should now go further and allow public corporations like GB Energy and the National Wealth Fund to “borrow independently in capital markets to finance additional investment without burdening national fiscal aggregates.”They would issue bonds to investors backed by project revenues. Under the current framework, they can only lend money that is first borrowed by the government.
为了释放国有企业的投资潜力，Healey应该要么改变国家统计局（Office for National Statistics）对国有企业的分类方式，要么改用欧洲普遍采用的“广义政府债务”（general government debt）指标来衡量政府的债务水平（而非目前使用的净债务指标）。
To unlock “the constrained investment potential of public corporations,” Healey should either change the way the Office for National Statistics classifies them or switch from net debt to the “general government” measure of debt that excludes them is widely used in Europe.
据Sky News披露的文件显示，工党在Keir Starmer担任首相期间曾考虑过这一方案。Starmer的政府计划允许国有企业为基础设施项目自行借款，相关文件还指出，这类借款将不受我国财政法规中那些“随意设定的会计限制”的约束。
Labour was looking at the option under former Prime Minister Keir Starmer. His government planned to let public corporations borrow on their own account for infrastructure projects, according to documents revealed by Sky News. That borrowing would be exempt from “arbitrary accounting blocks in our fiscal rules,” the documents said.
2021年至2024年间，保守党政府开创了将国有企业排除在财政法规之外的先例——当时他们将政府的债务指标调整为“不包括英格兰银行在内的公共部门净债务”。
The Conservative government between 2021 and 2024 set a precedent for removing public corporations from the fiscal rules when it changed its debt target to public sector net debt excluding the Bank of England.