UK economy grows in second quarter of 2024, in continued recovery from last year's recession
15 August 2024, 07:10 | Updated: 15 August 2024, 07:47
The UK economy grew by 0.6% between April and June, according to official figures.
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Despite the positive figures for the second quarter overall, there was no economic growth in the month of June alone, as weakness in services was offset by improvements in the manufacturing sector.
It comes after the economy grew 0.7% in the first three months of the year, after slipping into a shallow recession at the end of 2023.
Office for National Statistics director of economic statistics Liz McKeown said: "The UK economy has now grown strongly for two quarters, following the weakness we saw in the second half of last year.
"Growth across the three months was led by the service sector, where scientific research, the IT industry and legal services all did well.
"In June growth was flat with services falling, due to a weak month for health, retailing and wholesaling, offset by widespread growth in manufacturing."
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Responding to the figures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said she and her Cabinet colleagues were "under no illusion" about scale of the task ahead.
She added: "That is why we have made economic growth our national mission and we are taking the tough decisions now to fix the foundations, so we can rebuild Britain and make every part of the country better off."
Suren Thiru, economics director at the institute of chartered accountants of England and Wales, said that the pace of growth is unlikely to continue in the second half of 2024, but may end up delaying the next interest rate cut.
He said: "These figures confirm that the UK’s recovery from recession picked up steam in the second quarter, despite strike action and wet weather causing activity to flatline in June.
“The UK’s strong second quarter owes more to temporary momentum from the large recent falls in inflation and a boost to consumer spending from events like Euro 2024 than from a meaningful improvement in the UK’s underlying growth trajectory.
"This current pace of economic growth is unlikely to be maintained in the second half of the year as weaker wage growth, high interest rates and persistent supply constraints limits output.
"These strong second quarter growth figures may delay the next UK interest rate cut by giving those rate setters still worried about domestic price pressures enough assurances over the strength of the economy to hold off relaxing policy.”"
