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The latest figures show that the UK had the worst growth in the G7 in Q3
My colleagues, the UK is currently the worst performing G7 nation in terms of quarterly economic growth Graeme Weardon He writes on his business live blog. It says:
That’s worse than the 0.3% contraction in UK GDP in Q3 reported this morning of Japan 0.2% decline in GDP, while Canada And The US Both rose by about 0.7%.
France (+0.2%), Germany (+0.4%) and Italy (+0.5%) all rose in July-September as well.
Rachel Reeves, The shadow chancellor, claims this shows the Tories have lost control of the economy.
NEW: GDP data has been revised up, leaving the UK with the worst growth in the G7 in the last quarter.
The Tories have lost control of the economy and are leaving millions of working people paying the price.
Only Labor has a proper plan to grow our economy.
— Rachel Reeves (@RachelReevesMP) December 22, 2022
Graeme has more on this story on his Business Live blog.
The minister admitted more was needed to ease trade after Brexit hurt the business survey
good morning Two years ago on Saturday, Boris Johnson announced that it had finalized a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU. Never one to lose to the superlatives, he said it was “the biggest trade deal ever, worth £660bn”. In his statement he described it thus:
A deal that will allow our companies and our exporters to do even more business with our European friends.
It also claimed – falsely – that there would be “no non-tariff barriers to trade” under its terms.
This morning the British Chambers of Commerce released a report on how that trade deal (the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, or TCA, to give it its formal title) is working, and it is damaging. As my colleague Heather Stewart In her written reports, more than 1,000 business leaders were surveyed and three-quarters of them said the deal was not helping them increase sales or expand. Here is her story.
And here is the chart that shows the main result.
I will post more from the survey soon.
There has not been much response from the government, however Mark Spencer, the agriculture minister, has been giving interviews and told Times Radio this morning that he claimed the government wanted to reduce “red tape” for exporters to the EU. He said:
We can always do more to facilitate and facilitate trade routes and passages. We are very keen to do that. We are a free and open trading nation, we want to work closely with our EU colleagues, and we want to try to reduce the red tape, if any, across the Channel. So, of course, we want to keep those channels of trade open in both directions.
Parliament is not sitting in London. But in Edinburgh Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister, is taking questions at 12pm, and then MSPs are due to finish the debate on the Gender Identity Reform (Scotland) Bill. The final polling is scheduled to take place at 2.45 pm. It was expected yesterday but, as my colleague Libby Brooks Reports, discussions ran with time.
I will try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, include “Andrew” somewhere in it and I’m more likely to get it. I try to answer questions, and if they’re of general interest I’ll post the question and answer it above the line (ATL), though I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
If you want to get my attention quickly, better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com.
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