DOWNING STREET denied Britain is on a \u201crecession-watch\u201d after official figures today revealed a surprise fall in GDP in the run-up to the\u00a0Budget.<\/p>\n
Chancellor Rachel Reeves came under further pressure after the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed a 0.1 per cent drop in the three months to\u00a0October.<\/p>\n
Pre-Budget worries and tax-hike speculation have been widely blamed for an unexpected contraction in the\u00a0economy.<\/p>\n
Most economists had been expecting a rise of 0.1 per cent for October on hopes of a manufacturing bounce-back led by Jaguar Land Rover\u2019s (JLR) recovery from a major cyber\u00a0attack.<\/p>\n
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak warned consumer spending is \u201cstill very weak\u201d as he called for the Bank of England to deliver further interest rate\u00a0cuts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government acted to boost household incomes at the Budget \u2014 it raised minimum wage, benefiting millions across the country, cut child poverty and funded energy payments to support living standards,\u201d he\u00a0added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Bank of England should now recognise the impact that the living standards crisis has had on families\u2019 and businesses\u2019 finances and spending \u2014 and must deliver further cuts in interest rates next\u00a0week.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: \u201cThe latest figures reflect the low-investment, low-growth doom loop that still defines the UK\u00a0economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe desperately need more government investment and joined-up thinking on industry to create jobs and to raise GDP. Last month\u2019s Budget was a wasted opportunity to deliver on\u00a0that.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther advanced economies invest much more than us and we simply can\u2019t afford to be left further\u00a0behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ONS said gross domestic product (GDP) fell as car manufacturing activity only made a \u201cslight\u201d recovery from the woes at JLR, with the services sector weighed down as consumers held back spending on the high street before the Budget, delivered on November\u00a026.<\/p>\n
The data shows the economy has now not grown since June, with GDP either flat or falling in the past four\u00a0months.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters, Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s official spokesman rejected suggestions the country is on \u201crecession watch\u201d insisting \u201cthese are monthly\u00a0figures.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that there was \u201cmore to do\u201d and the government was investing billions, encouraging private investment and reforming the planning system to make it easier to\u00a0build.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DOWNING STREET denied Britain is on a \u201crecession-watch\u201d after official figures today revealed a surprise fall in GDP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-314386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}