The cost of European Union regulations for companies means that Britain is better off leaving the single market, one of the country’s most senior business leaders has said.

Lord Bamford, the chairman of JCB and a Conservative peer, said that trade tariffs imposed after Brexit would be a “price worth paying” and that UK businesses will take it “in their stride”.

His vote of confidence came as Britain’s economy expanded by 0.5 per cent in the three months following the EU referendum, defying the “Project Fear” predictions of a recession made by the Treasury ahead of the vote.