More businesses have gone bust in the current recession than in any other since records began, figures show.
Insolvency Service statistics have revealed that nearly 27,000 businesses have gone under.
The collapses, which included famous names such as Woolworths and MFI, come to almost 17,500 more than in the downturn of the Eighties and almost 3,000 more than in the Nineties.
Closing time: Woolworths is one of the businesses to go to the wall
The Tories said the figures disproved Alistair Darling’s claim in his Pre-Budget Report that more businesses had collapsed in the Nineties.
They said flagship Government schemes that were meant to encourage lending to businesses were failing.
Insolvency experts say 34,000 companies showed signs of ‘distress’ in the third quarter of this year. They also believe the worst is yet to come, with at least
another 27,000 firms going bust next year in the aftermath of the credit crunch.
Although the economy is forecast to come out of recession early next year, data from the past two British downturns indicate that bankruptcies continue to rise after growth returns.
A record 150,000 individuals are expected to be declared insolvent in 2010, with more than a thousand people a day seeking some form of debt restructuring.
Tory business spokesman John Penrose said: ‘Far from abolishing boom and bust, Gordon Brown has handed this country its worst recession ever.’
The Treasury insisted the Chancellor was correct to claim there had been ‘ proportionally’ fewer insolvencies than in the Nineties, because there are now more firms overall.
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