Alistair Darling will have to downgrade the government’s growth forecast and acknowledge the effects of the protracted problems in the credit markets as he gives his first pre-Budget report in a deteriorating economic climate.

The chancellor can maintain his predecessor’s boast that the UK is growing faster than any other G7 economy, with gross domestic product on track to expand by about 3 per cent this year. That exactly matches the central estimate given in the March Budget, well above the average of independent forecasts.