Debt weight An economic inheritance that's left chancellor short of options

Rachel Reeves will deliver her spring statement on Wednesday against a backdrop of weak economic growth, rising global uncertainty and higher government borrowing costs.

- Richard Partington Alex Clark

It has been a turbulent period since her October budget and - as the chancellor is now repeating at every opportunity - the world has changed. Few places show that more clearly than the financial markets, where conditions have turned against her.

The cost of government borrowing as represented by bond yields has risen sharply since the autumn. This is partly driven by domestic factors, but also by global worries over Donald Trump hitting growth and stoking inflation.

The yield - in effect the interest rate - on 10-year UK government bonds has reached 4.6%, higher than the levels during the most turbulent days of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng's mini-budget.

Meanwhile the UK's stock of debt has ballooned in recent years to more than £2.6tn - a sum equal to almost every penny of annual economic output. Paying the interest on this debt was forecast in October to cost the government about £105bn this year, or about 8% of total public spending. But the recent rise in borrowing costs is expected to drive this higher.

Here we explain the economic inheritance that left the chancellor with so little room to manoeuvre.

Borrowing costs UK government bonds are known as gilts or gilt-edged securities.

A bond is a form of loan, or IOU, that investors make to a borrower. They are issued to raise money - in the government's case, to cover spending that is not matched by tax receipts.

Bond yields represent the amount of money an investor receives for owning the debt as a percentage of its current price. When the price falls, yields rise. The yield is also commonly referred to as an interest rate, or the "cost of borrowing" to an issuer.