Today’s Scottish GDP figures: the stockpiling aftermath

Today, the Scottish Government published their growth estimates for the second quarter of 2019 – with the results suggesting that the Scottish economy contracted by -0.3% in Q2 2019. These estimates broadly mirror the trends we’ve seen at the UK level, where over the same period, UK output contracted by -0.2%. Recall that today’s figures come on the back of strong growth in Q1 of this year. Over the first three months of 2019, the Scottish economy grew by +0.6%. As we argued back then, movements in Scottish GDP data have been impacted by the stockpiling that has been taking place as a result of Brexit.