The uncertainty surrounding Britain’s future relationship with the EU “will take time to resolve”

The World Bank has slashed its growth forecasts for Britain up to 2019, with no sign of recovery from a Brexit-induced slowdown.

In its first update since the European Union referendum last June, the bank cut its expectations for UK growth from 2.1 per cent to 1.2 per cent in 2017 and from 2.1 per cent to 1.3 per cent in 2018. It predicted growth of 1.3 per cent in 2019.

Its concerns were echoed by the Centre for Economic and Business Research, which predicted that growth would more than halve this year to 0.8 per cent owing to the Brexit vote as business investment suffered and higher inflation caused “real wages to fall”.

Growth last year is estimated to have been 2.2 per cent