HOUSEHOLD spending growth accelerated to 0.6 per cent in the third quarter from 0.2 per cent in the previous three months, as car purchases regained momentum, official figures show.
However, the data from the Office for National Statistics confirmed UK gross domestic product had increased by only 0.4 per cent in the third quarter as exports fell and business investment growth slowed to a crawl.
The ONS attributed the pattern of consumers’ spending on cars partly to changes in vehicle tax.
It said: “The path of quarterly growth in household spending through the first three quarters of 2017 was in part driven by changes in the timing of car purchases in response to increases in vehicle excise duty on high-polluting vehicles, which came into force in April 2017.
“These changes led to consumers bringing forward planned new car purchases, leading to a decline in quarter two and since then we have seen a modest recovery to expenditure on transport, including motor cars, into quarter three.”
Household spending had grown by 0.4 per cent in the first quarter.
A 0.7 per cent drop in exports and a 1.1 per cent jump in imports between the second and third quarters meant net trade exerted a 0.5 percentage-point drag on GDP growth.
And business investment growth slowed to 0.2 per cent in the third quarter, from 0.5 per cent in the preceding three months.
A Confederation of British Industry survey yesterday signalled solid year-on-year growth in retail sales volumes in November, after a plunge in October. But retail employment fell over the last year, the survey shows.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here