- Joe Grice, chief economist at the ONS
While the UK economy recorded the fastest annual growth rate since the financial crisis of 2007, the economic recovery lost some steam in the final quarter of 2014. According to the Office for National Statistics, the UK economic output slowed to 0.5% in the three months through December, down from 0.7% in the previous quarter and against the City's forecast of a 0.6% growth rate. The final quarter's GDP was affected by weaker production of oil and gas in the North Sea, which translated into an unexpected fall in overall industrial output. GDP advanced 2.7% compared with the fourth quarter of 2013, while economic output in 2014 as a whole was up 2.6% on 2013. Services sector continues to be the main catalyst of headline GDP growth, contributing 0.62 percentage points of growth on the quarter, whereas construction's decline deducted 0.11 percentage points of the total. The International Monetary Fund expects the UK economy to grow 2.7% this year, which would be the fastest in the Group of Seven after the US.
Prime Minister David Cameron is relying on the recovery and surging employment to help him retain power after the general election, which take place on May 7, with polls suggesting neither his Conservative Party nor the Labour opposition is set for a parliamentary majority. The economy is now 7.8% bigger than it was in the second quarter of 2010, when Britons went to polls last time.
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