Britain limped out of its longest ever recession in the fourth quarter of 2009, official data showed on Tuesday, but massive debt is set to stunt recovery beyond a looming general election. British gross domestic product (GDP) grew by only 0.1 percent in the three months to December, compared with a 0.2 percent contraction in the third quarter, the Office for National Statistics announced in a statement. Britain's return to growth may not be enough for embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown to keep his job at a general election due by June, however, as the nation faces a tough recovery amid high debt and unemployment. Brown was 'confident but cautious' about growth ahead, his spokesman said on following the first official estimate of fourth quarter GDP. The positive figure, which undershot expectations of 0.4-percent expansion, marked the end of a recession that began in the second quarter of 2008 as a result of the global financial crisis. Britain's return to growth means that Spain is the only major economy still trapped in recession following the aftermath of the global financial crisis and the subsequent worldwide downturn. But the outlook for the global economy is far from rosy, with the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations recently warning of a possible renewed or 'double-dip' recession this year. Those worries are mounting in Europe, where Greece and Portugal are also struggling with soaring public debt. Like many Western countries, Britain's public debt has rocketed to record levels as the government spent billions on financial stimulus measures and banking- sector bailouts in an attempt to avert economic meltdown. 'The UK economy finally exited recession in the fourth quarter last year, but at a snail's pace,' said economist Jonathan Loynes at consultancy Capital Economics. 'With households under pressure, credit in short supply and a fiscal squeeze looming, the path back to pre-recession levels of activity will be a long and bumpy one.' Commentators also argued that the return to economic growth was skewed because temporary factors had lifted GDP -- the total value of goods and services produced in an economy -- particularly in the retail and car sectors. Retailers won a major boost from a temporary cut in taxation on goods and services. Value-added tax (VAT) was trimmed for one year from December 2008 to help lift Britain out of recession. The motor trade has also been energised by the government's so-called scrappage scheme that subsidises the cost of buying a new car if trading in an old model. 'These sectors will have been boosted by the pre-announced VAT rise in January, and the car scrappage scheme -- suggesting that, on an underlying basis, the economy only stagnated at best,' said Daiwa Capital Markets economist Colin Ellis. 'Never has an end to a recession been so underwhelming,' he added. The ONS added that the British economy shrank by 4.8 percent over the course of 2009, compared with the previous year -- the biggest annual contraction on record. Britain's government had forecast contraction of 4.75 percent in 2009, while the country's economy had shrunk by 6.0 percent over six quarters. State borrowing is meanwhile predicted to strike a record 178 billion pounds (203 billion euros, 288 billion dollars) in the 2009/10 financial year which ends in April. However, Brown on Monday insisted that now was not the right time to cut state aid, despite the mountain of debt that was largely caused by the multi-billion- pound bailouts of struggling British banks. The state of Britain's troubled economy has become the key battleground ahead of the general election that is likely to see Brown's Labour Party defeated by the main opposition Conservatives, according to polls. Whichever party wins power, Britain faces public spending cuts and taxation hikes in the years ahead as it looks to reduce state borrowing, economists said. Finance minister Alistair Darling last month predicted that the British economy would grow by 1.0-1.5 percent in 2010, after admitting that the nation's recession was deeper than originally thought. To combat the downturn, the Bank of England cut interest rates to a record low level of 0.50 percent, where they have stood since March. The central bank also introduced a radical policy of quantitative easing, or pumping new cash into the economy in a bid to kick-start lending. 