Chancellor George Osborne vowed to stick by his austerity measures today despite a slowdown in the pace of the UK’s economic recovery.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the UK grew by 0.2 per cent between April and June, compared with 0.5 per cent in the previous quarter.
Year-on-year, the UK grew by just 0.7% in the 12 months to the end of June, the lowest rate of growth since the first quarter of 2010.
The ONS said the second-quarter figure would have shown growth of up to 0.7 per cent if it had not been for one-off factors such as the extra bank holiday for the royal wedding and the disruption to British manufacturing supply chains caused by the Japanese tsunami.
Vowing to