Election 2015: Tories take hit as UK economic growth slows ahead of 7 May

The UK government has been hit by a batch of disappointing economic figures as official data showed that the country's economic growth slowed at the start of 2015.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released the data with just days to go before the general election and revealed that Britain's GDP grew by just 0.3% in the first quarter (Q1) of 2015, down from 0.6% on Q4 2014.

The research body explained that the services sector gave the largest contribution to the hike, with an increase of 0.5%.

But the ONS said the three other main industrial groupings (construction, production and agriculture) decreased over the same period.

The Chancellor George Osborne argued that the figures were "good news" since the figures showed the economy grew by 2.4% on the year.

"But this is a critical moment [and a] reminder you can't take recovery for granted," the top Tory said.

"GDP figures show future of the economy is on the ballot paper. We should stick to the plan that's delivering a brighter more secure future."

His Liberal Democrat partner in the Treasury, Danny Alexander, shared a similar message.

"The British economy is recovering well, but these figures remind us that there is still work to do to secure the recovery," he said.

"Though volatile construction data shows a big dip, the underlying figures show that we are still making solid progress across the wider economy."

The data comes with just nine days to go before the general election on 7 May, with the Tories one point ahead of Labour (35% v 34%) in the latest YouGov poll.

The Tories have based much of their election campaign around the economy and today David Cameron will promise to create 50,000 extra apprenticeships by introducing new fines on financial firms.