Darren Morgan, head of GDP at the ONS, said the solid third quarter growth was underpinned by "robust consumer demand".

Ruth Gregory, an economist at Capital Economics, said latest official and survey data suggested the economy would "turn in another solid performance in the final three months of the year".

The ONS also issued "small revisions" to previous quarters, revising down its estimate for the first and second quarters of 2016 by 0.1 percentage points each to 0.3pc and 0.6pc respectively.

Statisticians said the upward revisions to third quarter growth were largely due to stronger than expected growth in financial services, insurance and pension funds.

This pushed up growth from the business services and finance industries by 0.5 percentage points to 0.8pc.