It echoes a similar comment from Mr Burnham at Prime Minister’s Questions last week where he said: “I am not sure that the right honourable lady (Kemi Badenoch) has read last week’s report from the International Monetary Fund, because if she had read it she would see its clear conclusion that Britain is the standout nation for deficit reduction and the joint fastest growing country in the G7.”
Evaluation
The UK’s economy is forecast to be the joint second-fastest growing in the G7 this year, not the joint fastest. This is according to the rounded “headline” forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which place the UK level with Germany and behind the US.
But digging deeper into the data shows the unrounded figures place the UK as the third-fastest growing country in the G7 in the forecast, slightly behind Germany.
Separate data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows the UK’s economic growth in the first half of this year was the fastest in the G7. Rounding the figures places the UK as joint-fastest with the US.
The facts
The IMF’s World Economic Outlook forecasts what growth will be for each country in the G7 group of advanced economies.
The IMF’s main report expects the US to grow by 2.3% in 2026, the fastest in the G7. This is followed by Germany and the UK both on 1.3%, then Canada on 1.1%, Italy on 0.8%, Japan on 0.7% and France on 0.4%.
The IMF’s 2027 forecast once again has the US in first place at 2.3%, followed by Canada on 1.7%, the UK on 1.2%, Germany on 1.1%, Japan and France both on 0.7%, and Italy on 0.6%.
However, alongside the World Economic Outlook report, the IMF releases data tables which provide unrounded versions of these figures through its data explorer site.
According to these unrounded predictions, the UK’s growth (around 1.27%) will be slightly lower than Germany’s (around 1.32%) in 2026, putting the UK economy in third place among the G7.
Could Mr Burnham have been referring to something else?
Mr Burnham clearly set out on Good Morning Britain that his source was the IMF. However, his comment in the Commons had two parts, with the second being about growth.
Looking beyond the IMF, there are datapoints which suggest the UK has recently been the G7’s fastest growing economy.
A detailed dataset from the OECD shows UK growth was around 0.641% in the first quarter of this year and 0.533% in the second, totalling 1.174% for the first half of the year. Meanwhile, the US recorded growth at around 0.617% and 0.550%, showing total growth of 1.168% in the first half.
This means the UK economy grew ever so slightly faster than the US in the first half of 2026, making it marginally the fastest growing in the G7.
The two economies both grew by 1.2% when rounded to one decimal place, the joint fastest countries in the G7.
No 10 has been contacted.