A report published by the Office for National Statistics (www.ons.gov.uk) last week said that “output in the UK’s industrial sector contracted more severely than expected in March, after a sharp pull-back in manufacturing production”.

The ONS also revised its earlier estimate of a 0.3% first-quarter increase in industrial production to 0.1%.

The report said: “Manufacturing production declined by 0.6% in March, worse than the 0.2% decline predicted by economists. The fall brought year-on-year growth in the sector down to 2.3%, from 3.3% the previous month.”

Furthermore, the ONS said that the total trade deficit almost doubled from the final quarter of last year to the first quarter of 2017, reaching £10.5 billion after a “sharp narrowing” at the end of last year.

It went on to say: “The main causes of the widening of the deficit in the first quarter of 2017 were increased imports of machinery and transport equipment (mainly mechanical machinery and cars), oil and chemicals; these commodities also contributed the most to the increase in imports in March 2017.”

Howard Archer of the IHS business-information group, said: “This ‘ropey’ trade and industrial-production data confirms that Britain’s economy is slowing down. The actual industrial production data was weaker than estimated in the preliminary first-quarter GDP estimate, while the trade deficit unexpectedly widened.”