A LEADING Scottish economist has warned that strong economic growth in Germany and France is "difficult" for the Coaltion Government which is pursuing swingeing public spending cuts as the UK economy lags behind its European counterparts.

Data revealed yesterday that the German economy grew by 1.5% during the first quarter of the year. This was three times the 0.5% growth rate achieved in the UK in the opening three months of 2011.

The German economy had grown by 0.4% in the fourth quarter of last year, in contrast to a 0.5% drop in gross domestic product in the UK in the final three months of 2010.

Yesterday’s European Commission data also revealed French GDP grew by 1% in the opening three months of this year – twice the rate of expansion in the UK during that period. The French economy grew by 0.3% in the final quarter of 2010.

Brian Ashcroft, professor of economics at Strathclyde University and editor of the regular Fraser of Allander Institute commentary, said: “France and Germany don’t have fiscal consolidation as extreme as ours. This is difficult for the Government, when you compare with [mainland] Europe.”

Referring to Chancellor George Osborne and his programme of public spending cuts and tax hikes, Mr Ashcroft added: “I am sure the Chancellor can take no comfort out of the stronger performance of those other countries ... I think he is going to tough it out, but there is no doubt the UK economy is displaying weakness and that may in part be due to the fiscal consolidation.

“It is a concern and, also, it is quite clear our households are not recovering their spending patterns as quickly as one would hope, in part because we have all the implications of the credit crunch and indebtedness but also, with our inflation rate being higher here, the growth of real income is much less here.”

Mr Ashcroft has highlighted consistently the downward pressure likely to be exerted by the Coalition Government’s huge fiscal consolidation programme on Scotland and the wider UK economy.

And former Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member David Blanchflower warned last year that Scotland was in “great danger” from the planned public sector spending cuts.

He claimed they would prove to be the “greatest macroeconomic mistake in 100 years”.

Mr Blanchflower, whose predictions of the gravity of the situation going into the 2008/09 recession proved accurate, warned last year that Scotland’s greater reliance on the public sector left it particularly vulnerable.

Germany is currently benefiting from its large manufacturing sector, and export potential.

In spite of Mr Osborne’s talk in his March Budget about “a Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers”, the manufacturing sector accounts for just 12.8% of the UK economy.

Questions have also been raised over the ability of the UK banking sector, which was hammered amid the global credit crisis, to finance a solid recovery here.

Overall growth in the 17-nation eurozone in the first quarter was 0.8%, after expansion of 0.3% in the final three months of last year, putting the bloc as a whole significantly ahead of the UK in terms of momentum.

Even Greece managed growth of 0.8% in the first quarter, although this followed a 2.8% drop in output in the final three months of last year.

Mr Ashcroft noted that the eurozone economies could in time be affected by fall-out from any default by Greece on its debt. He believed such a default was becoming more likely.

Figures published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics showed UK construction output dropped by 4% in the first quarter of this year.

This was not quite as steep a fall as the 4.7% drop estimated by the Office for National Statistics when it calculated last month that UK GDP had grown by 0.5% in the first quarter

However, the slightly less steep fall in construction output may not lead to any upward revision of the overall UK growth rate of 0.5% for the first quarter because industrial production was weaker than the ONS had thought previously.

Official data published on Thursday showed UK industrial production grew by just 0.2% quarter-on-quarter in the opening three months of this year – half the 0.4% estimate incorporated in last month’s GDP data.