{"id":694389,"date":"2026-07-16T07:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T07:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/694389\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T07:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T07:25:08","slug":"uk-economy-returns-to-growth-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/694389\/","title":{"rendered":"UK economy returns to growth in May"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The economy recorded robust growth in the three months to May, though the pace eased slightly as the latest two months showed a weaker picture,&#8221; said Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics at the ONS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Yael\u202fSelfin, chief economist at KPMG, said the warmer weather in May helped to boost consumer spending, which is likely to have continued into June and July thanks to the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, she added, while this would help the services sector, &#8220;it may not be enough to offset weakness across other parts of the economy&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The recent rise in energy prices, driven by a pick-up in tensions in the Middle East, could pose a risk to the growth outlook, with financial conditions also tightening as a result,&#8221; Selfin said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Responding to the latest figures, a spokesperson for the Treasury said: &#8220;We have the right economic plan which has put the UK in a much stronger position than two years ago with the fastest growth in the G7 in the first quarter and the OECD agreeing that we have restored stability.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;The economy recorded robust growth in the three months to May, though the pace eased slightly as the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-694389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694389","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=694389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}