Growth is stunted

The Government received another economic blow yesterday when the International Monetary Fund said growth this year would be weaker than it first thought.

The IMF said the UK’s economy is set to grow by 1.7% in 2017, down from a previous forecast of 2%.

It said this reflected the UK’s ‘weakerthan-expected’ growth since January including a 0.2% gain in the first quarter.

“Brexit will be a negative to the British economy,” said the IMF’s chief economist Maurice Obstfeld. “Our forecasts are for a mild negative because we have an optimistic view of how the negotiations will go.”