A key indicator of the health of the British economy bounced back in April

A bounce back in retail sales could be interpreted as a positive sign for the economy. However, much of the rise is down to the late timing of Easter in 2017. People tend to spend more in shops around holidays like Easter and Christmas, so the months they fall in tend to see strong sales figures.

“As expected, the Easter holidays provided the welcome boost to retail sales, which goes some way to making up for the disappointing start to the year,” Helen Dickinson, the BRC’s chief executive said in a statement alongside the data.

“That said, the positive distortion from the timing of Easter was largely responsible for the month’s growth and looking to the longer-term signs of a slowdown, the outlook isn’t as rosy.”

While Easter did boost sales significantly, Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, argues that there is more to the figures than just the Easter break.

“April’s BRC figures are very strong, even after accounting for the boost to the year-over-year growth rate from the later timing of Easter this year compared to last,” Tombs said in an email on Tuesday morning.

“Indeed, like-for-like sales grew at the fastest rate for 11 years, despite there being five other occasions during that period when Easter occurred in the latest month but didn’t in the same month a year ago.”

Better than expected retail sales come in the week after a trio of highly respected surveys from IHS Markit also beat expectations, and suggested that the British economy should bounce back in the second quarter of the year after a disappointing Q1.