International economic watchdog warns UK is falling behind

Philip Hammond, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has responded to today’s OECD growth forecasts predicting that the UK will be the only G7 country not to see any growth this year.

"We will be the only major economy without any growth this year, and the only one for which prospects have got worse not better", he said.

He added that we were ill-prepared to face the recession because of economic and fiscal mismanagement on the part of Gordon Brown. "Far from being well placed to weather the storm as Gordon Brown claimed", Hammond said, "these figures show yet again that Britain is worse placed than our neighbours".

The OECD expects the UK economy to contract by 4.7 per cent in 2009 - even more than its last forecast of 4.3 per cent.