Friday’s figures will offer some relief to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his finance minister, as they seek measures to spur a rebound in their upcoming annual budget on March 15
Britain’s economy showed zero growth in the final three months of 2022 – enough for it to avoid entering a recession for now – but faces tough prospects in 2023 as households continue to wrestle with double-digit inflation.
Output fell 0.2 per cent in the three months to the end of September – when many businesses shut briefly to mark Queen Elizabeth’s funeral – and another consecutive fall in output in the fourth quarter would have met Europe’s usual definition of recession. British living standards have been hammered by a surge in inflation, which hit a 41-year high of 11.1 per cent in October, and firms and households will also feel an increasing impact from the BoE’s rapid increase in interest rates since December 2021.
“Recession, or at least a technical one, remains the base case. But this looks like it is going to be very mild by historical standards,” he said. However, business groups have said future investment will be deterred by a steep increase in taxation on profits that takes effect in April, and on Thursday AstraZeneca said it would move some production to Ireland, partly because Britain’s health service drove a hard bargain on drug prices.
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