UK Q1 GDP growth expected to have slowed to 0.5%

George Osborne’s stewardship of the economy is expected to take a dent on Tuesday when the latest official figures show last year’s healthy growth has lost momentum.

With just over a week until the election, the chancellor will come under pressure from critics following a run of poor figures from the manufacturing and construction sectors that City economists predict have slowed growth in the first quarter.

Osborne has already come under fire for presiding over a recovery that has failed to lift living standards above pre-crisis levels despite creating more than 1.5m jobs. Until recently, businesses have relied on a growing workforce of low paid, self-employed and part-time workers that has left productivity growth lagging behind most industrial nations.

Economists expect Tuesday’s figures to show that GDP growth slowed to a quarterly 0.5% in the first three months of this year, down from 0.6% in the final quarter of 2014.

Weaker than expected industrial production, construction output and high street sales in recent months, have even encouraged some economists to pencil in a halving in the growth rate to 0.3%, according to a Reuters poll.

While first estimates of GDP are often revised in later months, a weak number on Tuesday will come at a bad time for the Conservatives and their coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats.

“With the first quarter GDP number published only nine days before the election, a disappointing reading could cause a headache for the incumbent parties, particularly given their desire to emphasise their economic credentials,” said Andrew Goodwin, UK economist at the consultancy Oxford Economics.

He is forecasting that growth could come in as soft as 0.4% but adds: “We do not think that such a low number would necessarily be an accurate depiction of the true strength of the economy.”