Spring Budget 23: OBR forecasts UK will dodge recession in 2023 with inflation set to fall to 2.9%

Deficit to fall

The Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast that the UK will not enter a technical recession this year, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said today (15 March).

In the Spring Budget, Hunt said the OBR had predicted inflation will fall to 2.9% at the end of this year, down from 10.7% in the last quarter of 2022. Previously in the Autumn Statement in November, the OBR had predicted inflation would average 7.4% throughout the year. It also predicted a 1.5% contraction for UK GDP in 2023, but it has now forecast GDP will contract by just 0.2% throughout the year. UK GDP is then set to rise by 1.8% in 2024, 2.5% in 2025, 2.1% in 2026 and 1.9% in 2027. A technical recession is defined as two continuous quarters of declining GDP, which Hunt sa...