Economy growing

THE economy grew 0.4pc in the third quarter of 2018, an influential survey suggests.

Research firm IHS Markit said that Britain’s crucial services sector continued to expand in September, meaning the country is likely to have seen robust growth overall in the past three months. Markit’s index of services – where anything above 50 signal expansion – showed a reading of 53.9 this month, down from 54.3 in August. Meanwhile, the number of people who are employed by services companies rose at its fastest pace for seven months.