Official figures confirm that Britain's economy experienced zero growth in the second quarter compared with the first three months of 2008.
The Office for National Statistics said the quarterly growth rate was the weakest performance for 16 years. It was unchanged from the previous estimate given last month.
Gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an annual rate of 1.5% during the second quarter. The 12-month figure was revised upwards after a previous estimate of 1.4% growth.
Earlier this month, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) forecast that Britain faced a recession this year. The technical definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.
