Hi John,

The reduction is £676 billion - £498 billion = £178 billion. But you want to express the reduction as a percentage. The important question is, a percentage of what? In this case you probably want the reduction as a percentage of the initial value which is £676 billion. £178 billion as a fraction of £676 billion is (£178 billion)/(£676 billion) = 0.263. To express this fraction as a percent multiply by 100. Hence the reduction is

(£178 billion)/(£676 billion) × 100 = 26.3% of £676 billion.

Harley