{"id":87504,"date":"2025-11-13T08:04:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T08:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=87504"},"modified":"2025-11-13T08:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T08:06:10","slug":"growth-has-disappeared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/11\/13\/growth-has-disappeared\/","title":{"rendered":"Growth has disappeared"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have already <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/11\/13\/what-does-growth-mean\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">written about growth<\/a> this morning and how I frame the issue, which is very different from how I think Rachel Reeves does.<\/p>\n<p>Now there is new growth data from the Office for National Statistics for the third quarter of this year. As they say:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>Main Points<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>UK real gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have increased by 0.1% in Quarter 3 (July to Sept), compared with growth of 0.3% in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2025.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>GDP is estimated to have increased by 1.3% in Quarter 3 2025, compared with the same quarter a year ago.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>In output terms, growth in the latest quarter was driven by increases of 0.2% in services and 0.1% in construction; the production sector fell by 0.5%.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Real GDP per head is estimated to have shown no growth in the latest quarter and is up 0.8%, compared with the same quarter a year ago.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>We have updated our estimates for Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024 to Quarter 2 2025 to be consistent with our UK trade release published on 16 October 2025; this update includes the full implementation of improvements to the measurement of precious metals.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>There are no changes to headline real GDP quarter-on-quarter growth across 2024 and 2025 as a result of this data update; however, there were some minor 0.1 percentage point revisions to the change in the GDP implied deflator and the change in GDP in current prices for some quarters.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In real terms, what this means is that just about no one will feel any better off, at all, as a consequence of what Rachel Reeves has achieved as Chancellor, and many might feel worse off, whether or not they are.<\/p>\n<p>I stress, growth for growth's sake is not, in my opinion, the goal of the economy. That is, instead, a sure way to climate devastation. But Rachel Reeves has set this as the objective, and by her own measure, she has failed.<\/p>\n<p>As a background to a Budget, this is grim news for her.<\/p>\n<p>No wonder Labour MPs and even Cabinet Ministers think she and Starmer have failed. Objectively, she has.<\/p>\n<p>I will start publishing my alternative Budget very soon. The question, though, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/11\/13\/how-can-rachel-reeves-deliver-a-budget-when-the-government-is-collapsing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">as I have already asked this morning<\/a>, is whether Reeves can now deliver one that has any prospect of implementation. I increasingly doubt that she can. It is often said that all political careers end in fauoure. I have a feeling that is where Rachel Reeves is headed, and rather sooner than she might ever have anticipated.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is, the alternative is Darren Jones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have already written about growth this morning and how I frame the issue, which is very different from how I think Rachel Reeves does.<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/11\/13\/growth-has-disappeared\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127,204,35,147,118,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-budget","category-economic-justice","category-economics","category-inequality","category-labour","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87504"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87507,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87504\/revisions\/87507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}