The UK economy has seen growth of 0.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2023, beating predictions by economists who expected a 0.4 per cent improvement, according to the Office for National Statistics. This growth comes after two quarters of decline in the latter half of 2023, making it a technical recession.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt spoke about the positive GDP figures and said that the economy is starting to recover from its slump caused by the pandemic. He highlighted how the UK’s growth prospects are better than other G7 countries and mentioned benefits such as rising wages, falling energy prices, and tax cuts for workers. The growth was driven by improvements in both service and production sectors, with notable contributions from sectors like human health, social services, and retail.
Despite this overall positive growth, construction output saw a slight decline during the quarter but was less significant compared to the previous month. ONS director Liz McKeown noted that this positive growth was mainly driven by strength in service industries, particularly retail, public transport, health care and car manufacturers. Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves cautioned against celebrating too soon as she reminded that despite this progress towards full health of economy it is still smaller than it was before Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister.