UK second-quarter economic growth confirmed at 0.7%

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the rate of expansion was unchanged from its previous estimate, published a month ago, and the data was in line with many economists’ forecasts.

Deflation may have returned to the UK in September

In the second quarter of 2015, GDP was estimated to have been 5.9 per cent higher than the pre-economic downturn peak reached during the first three months of 2008, the ONS said.

Andrew Sentance, senior economic adviser at PwC, said: “Looking back over the recovery more broadly, upward revisions to GDP in earlier years mean that growth has averaged just over 2 per cent in the six years since the economy started growing again in mid-2009.

“This is respectable growth in the new normal post-crisis world and puts the UK among the leading major western economies – alongside the US and Germany – in terms of growth over the recovery as a whole. UK GDP is now nearly 6 per cent above the 2008 peak.”

However, year-on-year growth in the second quarter was trimmed to 2.4 per cent, down from the previously reported 2.6 per cent.

Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, said: “The slight downward revisions to year-on-year GDP growth have little implications for monetary policy.

“We believe that it is currently an extremely tight call as to whether the Bank of England lifts interest rates from 0.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent around February, or holds fire until nearer mid-2016.”