- Shabana Mahmood, shadow Treasury minister
The British economic growth remained unchanged in the third quarter, bolstered by a strong services sector and solid growth in household spending. On an annual basis, however, the UK economic output was downgraded to 2.6%, down from 3.0% estimated earlier. On the output side, all sectors enjoyed increases with production, construction and services all rising in the three months through September of 2014. While production output climbed 0.2% in the third quarter compared to the previous quarter, output in mining and quarrying, including oil and gas extraction, dropped 1.6%. Construction output edged up 1.6% as a whole and has advanced 5.7% since the third quarter of last year.
In a separate release, Britain's current account deficit matched a record high in the third quarter, hurt in large part by lower returns on foreign investment. The Office for National Statistics said deficit came in at 27 billion pounds in the third quarter, up from 24.3 billion in the previous three-month period and considerably worse than economists' predictions of a 23 billion pounds. The data means the gap now makes up 6% of GDP, up from 5.5% in the second quarter. Meanwhile, the number of new mortgage approvals fell to 36,717 in November, compared with 37,153 a month earlier but above market estimates, the British Banking Association said. November's reading was the lowest since April 2013 and 20% down on an annual basis.
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