The UK’s recession-fighting tools are already almost exhausted leaving the economy ill-prepared to battle the next slump if and when it arrives, economists have warned.

Interest rates are too low to be cut significantly, while the Government is already heavily indebted from heavy borrowing in the financial crisis and the years since.

This means urgent work is needed to find tools which could be used to stimulate the economy in another crunch, said the Resolution Foundation.

Its analysts are not predicting an imminent recession, but risks including a global economic slowdown, the US-China trade war an uncertainty over the future of Brexit all mean it is time to prepare for the worst.

“Monetary policy has very little space at this point, scarily little relative to the amount [of interest rate cuts] it has taken in previous recessions to offset the effect of recession,” said James Smith, research director at the foundation and formerly an economist for the Bank of England and the civil service.