Britain faces Brexit hit on consumer spending

The British economy’s strong finish to 2016 looks likely to prove a high watermark as Brexit gets under way, according to a range of indicators yesterday which pointed to a growing squeeze on consumers.

Households ran down their savings to a record low as their spending power shrank sharply in the last three months of 2016, official data showed.

In another indication that the world’s fifth-biggest economy has lost some of its resilience to last June’s shock vote to quit the EU, the dominant services industry contracted in January for the first time since March last year.