UK economy up 0.5% since Brexit vote, Nissan to build new Qashqai in Sunderland – as it happened

Today’s report shows that Britain has not suffered a Brexit shock, according to Joe Grice, head of the Office for National Statistics.

Grice says:

There is little evidence of a pronounced effect in the immediate aftermath of the vote”

The pound has rallied a little, to $1.225, as traders welcome the GDP report.

Britain’s service sector, which makes up three quarters of the economy, is the only part which grew in the last three months.

Service sector output grew by 0.8% in July-September.

• Construction shrank by 1.4%
  
• Agriculture shrank bu 0.7%
  
• Industrial production shrank by 0.4%
  
• And manufacturing (part of production) shrank by 1%
  

At first glance, this report suggests that the UK economy has shrugged off the immediate shock of the EU referendum.

It has grown faster than predicted in the gloomier forecasts ahead of June’s vote. Remember, the Treasury said the economy would shrink by 0.1% after a Brexit vote.

On an annual basis, the UK economy grew by 2.3% during the last quarter.

Again, that’s stronger than expected.

HERE WE GO! Britain’s economy grew by 0.5% in the three months after the Brexit vote.

That’s down from 0.7% in the second quarter of 2016, showing that growth has slowed.

But it’s also stronger than the 0.3% which economists has expected.

More to follow!

The pound has risen back to $1.224...

Tension is building, with just four minutes until we learn how the UK economy performed after the EU referendum....

Back in April, the Treasury claimed that the economy would shrink by 0.1% for four quarters in a row, if Britain voted to leave the EU.

Today’s GDP report is the first test of that assessment....

[UPDATE: This forecast may have assumed Britain had triggered Article 50 immediately after the referendum].

A flash of good news from Madrid: the Spanish unemployment rate hit its lowest level since 2009 in the last quarter. But it’s still 18.9%, despite a surge in summer hiring to handle the tourist trade.