UK's Sunak tells cabinet that government must not feed inflation

LONDON (Reuters) -British finance minister Rishi Sunak spoke about the importance of government actions not fuelling rising inflation during a meeting of senior ministers on Tuesday, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

The spokesman said that during a cabinet discussion on the pressure on household budgets due to the rising cost of living, Sunak outlined the package of support already in place, including towards helping people with energy bills.

"He underlined the importance of not feeding in to further inflation rises and emphasised that the UK is currently spending 80 billion pounds ($101.58 billion) servicing our debt," the spokesman said.

Figures published on Tuesday showed British government borrowing in the recently-ended 2021/22 financial year was almost 20% higher than forecast by the country's budget office last month.

Johnson's spokesman said a range of ideas were discussed at cabinet and the prime minister would chair a domestic and economic strategy committee in the next few weeks to finalise the proposals before they are brought into force.

($1 = 0.7876 pounds)

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan, editing by William James)