A TREASURY bond fund “black hole” is costing each household in Britain nearly £9,000, a Labour Party analysis revealed today.

The Asset Purchase Facility (APF) fund was created in 2009 and originally designed to profit from the Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme to help Britain’s recovery from the financial crisis.

The Bank bought up hundreds of billions of pounds’ worth of government bonds and other assets held by banks, pension funds and other finance companies, providing them with a liquidity source in an otherwise frozen market.

As the economy started to recover and interest rates stayed close to zero, government bonds once again became an attractive option for corporate investors, and the asset portfolio built up by the Bank began to increase in value.

In 2013, then chancellor George Osborne changed the rules governing the APF to ensure that any profits made on the BoE’s investments would flow to the Treasury.

But Labour said that the fund’s decline turned it into the most substantial liability on the Treasury’s balance sheet by the close of March 2023 – culminating in a staggering £251 billion loss.

The party said that it represents a cost of £8,900 for every household in Britain and is equivalent to 10 per cent of Britain’s gross domestic product in 2022 – or the entire GDP of Scotland and Wales combined.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “This Tory bond black hole will land working people with another astronomical bill for years to come.

“All [former Tory chancellors] are guilty of putting their short-term political ambitions ahead of the long-term economic interests of the country.”

Treasury minister Andrew Griffith said that the government is making progress on halving inflation, growing our economy and reducing debt.