UK exited Great Recession nine months earlier that thought

Assuming that 2013 growth figures are not revised, then Wednesday’s revisions would show that the UK has grown by 8.1pc since the start of 2010, 1.1 percentage points higher than previously estimated.

That would make the UK the third fastest growing economy in the G7, ahead of Germany and France. Only Canada and the US have seen a more rapid economic expansion during the period.

The data show that “by tackling our problems head on we are building a stronger economy”, said Mr Osborne.

A spokesman for the Treasury said that the “revisions show an economy that has been growing more strongly than previously thought", as almost every quarter under the current government has been revised upward.

On average, output increased by 0.1 percentage point more each year than the Office for National Statistics (ONS) had thought from 1998-2012.

“Despite the wide ranging improvements … the broad picture of the economy has not changed much”, said Joe Grice, chief economist at the ONS.

Analysts at Nomura take a different view: "Maybe that‟s true for statisticians not making decisions on the basis of these data, but we believe the debate over the past few years would have been rather different if this performance of the economy was being reported then".

The estimates still show that the post-crisis downturn was the deepest recession since ONS records began in 1948, and that the subsequent recovery has been unusually slow.

The Treasury also highlighted that “risk to the recovery from Europe and elsewhere remain”.

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