Official figures have confirmed that Britain's economy shrank at its sharpest quarterly rate since 1979 in the first three months of the year, as household spending fell at its fastest rate since 1980.
The Office for National Statistics said in its second estimate of economic activity that output fell 1.9% on the quarter, its biggest drop since Q3 1979. That was unchanged from the previous estimate. On the year, gross domestic product fell 4.1% - the biggest drop since Q4 1980.
Household spending fell 1.2% on the quarter. On the expenditure side, only government spending made a positive contribution to the economy.
Inventories fell by their biggest amount on record, contributing 0.6 percentage points to the quarterly decline in GDP.
The figures underline the broad weakness of the economy at the start of this year and the challenge facing policy-makers to kickstart growth. The Bank of England, which has said there is a great deal of uncertainty about when a sustained recovery might occur, has slashed interest rates to a record low 0.5%.
