Labour’s hopes for a feel-good mini-Budget next month have been dashed as plunging tax receipts drove Britain further into the red.

Analysts warned that Britain will need to borrow as much as £200 billion this year after it was revealed that in October, usually a surplus month, another £11.4 billion was added to the country’s debt. The Treasury insisted that the figures were “broadly in line” with its forecast of £175 billion but the Conservatives described them as “truly terrible”.

The credibility of Alistair Darling’s plans to halve borrowing over the next four years was further challenged by the Organisation of Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) which forecast that the jobless total is heading for three million and called for more ambitious plans to tackle the debt. The Tories seized on the OECD’s warning that Britain’s economic stability depended on “concrete and comprehensive” plans supported by “strong and credible” proposals to cut spending and raise taxes in the medium term.

George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, said the report, along with the latest public finance figures, provided a “defining moment in the debate about Britain’s debt”.

“Gordon Brown has not just lost control of the public finances but lost the economic argument about the debt crisis. The OECD said that more ambitious plans to get a grip on the deficit would, as Conservatives have consistently argued, strengthen the recovery,” he said.

Although the Government yesterday published its Fiscal Responsibility Bill, which places on a statutory footing its pledge that borrowing will be halved over four years, Treasury officials declined to specify whether the starting point for the reduction remains the forecast £175 billion or a revised figure.

Mr Darling had hoped that signs of recovery would be strong enough to allow targeted tax cuts for individuals and businesses in his pre-Budget report on December 9.

However, Labour’s room for manoeuvre for a pre-election mini-Budget has been limited by poor corporation tax revenues. The figures, which Treasury aides insisted were skewed by unusually high oil prices last year, showed a record 13th successive month of declining current receipts.

While the tax take was down 9 per cent to £41 billion, spending on factors such as unemployment benefits has risen. This has pushed up the Government’s total current expenditure to £48.6 billion, while net debt has reached £829.7 billion — £134.6 billion higher than a year ago and equivalent to more than 59 per cent of GDP.

Mr Darling was given some good news yesterday. Although the OECD said that the UK’s recovery would be slow — just 1.2 per cent next year — it would be better than the eurozone group’s, which is forecast to expand just 0.9 per cent in 2010.

Douglas McWilliams, chief executive of the Centre for Economics and Business Research, said borrowing could come close to £200 billion this year. “Our view is that excess spending based on over-optimistic projections of tax receipts has been a root cause of the excess borrowing. All eyes will be on the Chancellor’s Pre-Budget Report.

“With the UK’s bond rating under scrutiny, it will be necessary to take action in the PBR that does not depend, as last year or in the Budget, on over-optimistic growth forecasts or on expectations of tax receipts from higher taxes on potential taxpayers, who in reality will turn out to be internationally mobile.”

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