The economy will take another two years to recover from the pandemic, a leading think tank has warned.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research said that GDP would expand by only 3.4% in 2021, down from an earlier forecast of 5.9%.

It blamed “uncertainty about the path of the virus and the effectiveness of vaccines against strains”.

The outlook is far more bleak than the Bank of England and other forecasters, which have assume a 5% growth and a return to a pre-pandemic sized economy by early next year.