UK ‘to face worst downturn of major economies’ in 2023, says OECD

The government was today accused of sending the country into an economic “doom loop” after new forecasts suggest Britain will rank bottom of the growth league table for major economies for the next two years in succession. It also said that the UK was vulnerable to blackouts over the coming months, warning: “A particularly cold winter could risk supply disruptions, exposing the economy to rolling power cuts.” Labour Treasury spokesperson Pat McFadden said the figures showed the UK was the only one of the OECD’s 38 member-states whose economy was not expected to return to pre-Covid levels by 2024. And they have no plan to get us out of it.” The OECD blamed labour shortages and “untargeted” energy support for painful inflation in the UK, forecast to peak at the end of this year around its current level of 11.1 per cent and remain above 9 per cent into early 2023, before easing to 4.5 per cent by the end of next year and 2.7 per cent in 2024. OECD interim chief economist Alvaro Santos Pereira said the world was currently facing “a very difficult economic outlook” but that global growth is nonetheless forecast to be 2.2 per cent in 2023. “EPG is worth just £300 versus current estimates of typical energy bills.” Responding to the bleak OECD forecast for the next two years, Mr Sunak’s spokesperson said that all major economies were facing similar issues with energy prices, the war in Ukraine and the fallout from Covid.