Jeremy Hunt insists economy is growing again after UK dipped into recession

JEREMY Hunt insisted the economy has started growing again after the UK dipped into recession at the end of last year.

The Chancellor told anxious Brits that the “plan is working” after it emerged the country entered a less severe downturn than first thought.

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Across the whole of 2023 it’s thought GDP rose by 0.1 per cent which is the lowest perfomance since the 2009 financial crisis, if the 2020 pandemic year is excluded.

Mr Hunt said the economy is growing but “albeit at a very slow rate” when pressed about Rishi Sunak’s promise to grow the economy.

He said: “The Prime Minister’s pledge last year was to halve inflation and he delivered on that. In fact inflation has fallen from over 11% to 3.4%. Having done that he then said we would grow the economy.

“I don’t think any of us were expecting the economy to actually grow last year, the Bank of England wasn’t, the Office for Budget Responsibility wasn’t, in fact it did, albeit at a very slow rate.

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“That is a testament to the resilience of the economy but also the fact the Government took some very difficult decisions early on to make sure we got the economy back on track.”

Official figures from the Office of National Statistics confirmed a technical recession in the final two quarters of last year. But the economy did grow by 0.2 per cent in January.