UK public finances improve again, second-quarter deficit smallest in seven years

Britain's headline public borrowing fell to 9.4 billion pounds in June from 10.2 billion pounds a year earlier, compared with economists' forecasts of an 8.5 billion pound deficit, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday. For the first three months of the 2015/16 tax year, public sector net borrowing was 25.1 billion pounds, down nearly 20 percent compared with the April-June period of last year and its lowest for the same period since the 2008/09 financial year. Chancellor