Politics Live

This week saw A-level results released across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and politicians from both sides of the House have repeated claims that we’ve looked at before. 

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Labour’s education secretary Bridget Phillipson stated: “We’ve seen big rises under the last government where it comes to child poverty.”

As we’ve explained in previous fact checks, there are different ways of measuring child poverty. While some measures show an increase since 2010, at least one measure—the number of children in absolute low income after housing costs—fell during the period of Conservative-led or Conservative government, from 3.7 million in 2009/10 to 3.6 million in 2022/23. 

Meanwhile, Full Fact’s AI tools alerted us to another claim we’d looked into previously. Conservative shadow minister Greg Smith wrote in the Daily Express: “Since 2010, the percentage of state-funded schools in England rated as ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted has surged from 68% to 90%.”

This is similar to a claim made earlier this year by then schools minister Damian Hinds. When we looked at that we found that, although it is accurate for England, the way schools are inspected has changed, making direct comparisons between these time periods difficult.

We’ve been asked to have a look at comments made by the Conservative MP and former minister David Davis MP on a recent episode of Leading, an interview strand of The Rest is Politics podcast, hosted by Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell. 

In the podcast, Mr Davis and Mr Stewart discussed trade barriers with China. Mr Davis said graphics chips in computers come from Taiwan, which was then followed by this exchange: 

RS: “Nobody’s putting tariff barriers against Taiwan, they’re putting tariff barriers against China”.

DD: “But that’s where it comes from… Most of our trade is with Taiwan, that’s the first thing to know about this”. 

It’s not entirely clear what comparison Mr Davis was making. We’ve contacted him and will update this blog if we receive a reply. 

But official statistics show that the total value of the UK’s trade with China is greater than its trade with Taiwan. 

In the four quarters to the end of Quarter 1 2024, the value of total trade between the UK and Taiwan was £7.2 billion. In the same period, the UK’s trade with China was worth £86.5 billion. Taiwan was the UK’s 35th largest trading partner, and China the 6th largest.

While the UK doesn’t recognise Taiwan as a state, since 1991 the UK and Taiwan have held annual ministerial trade talks. 

Update: We are grateful to Mr Davis for clarifying that he intended to refer solely to supply of very advanced technology, specifically logic chips (<10 nanometres), the majority of which are made in Taiwan, rather than to the UK’s overall trade, or its trade in tech products generally, with Taiwan and China. 

Following the news that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has chosen her running mate (Minnesota governor Tim Walz), we’ve seen coverage of the US election in some UK newspapers this morning. 

However, two of the papers covering the story have incorrectly stated the age of the Republican candidate and former President, Donald Trump, on their front pages. 

The Times said Mr Trump is 74, while the Telegraph said he’s 77. Mr Trump was born on 14 June 1946—meaning he’s now 78 years old. 

You may have noticed it’s been slightly quiet over here on our politics blog. 

Parliament rose for its summer recess on 30 July, just a few weeks after the general election. 

Before then, we covered Sir Keir Starmer’s first PMQs as Prime Minister, and looked at public spending in Scotland, as well as claims about the two-child benefit cap. 

However, we’re still busy checking facts. 

The big political story in the last week or so has been the disorder and rioting following the stabbings in Southport. We’ve written about the role misinformation has played in these events, as well as an explainer on the riots, and the response by government and the police. We will continue to monitor developments and fact check related claims as long as necessary. 

In the last couple of weeks, we’ve also covered online claims about the pensions former prime ministers receive, the Paris Olympics, as well as claims about the US—where the presidential race is heating up. 

Worry not—assuming it’s not recalled sooner, Parliament’s back on 2 September, though it’ll rise again 10 days later, on 12 September, for the party conferences. We’ll keep checking the facts in the meantime.

The Conservatives have claimed Labour “lied” about how much its energy plans would save people on their energy bills.

Labour said during the election that its plan to achieve ‘clean energy’ (meaning power generated through fossil-free energy sources) would save families “up to £300” on their bills per year by 2030.

But it was reported by the Daily Mail yesterday that Number 10 would no longer commit to this figure.

We looked at this figure before the election and found that at that point it was already out of date.

It’s based on a report by the energy think tank Ember, which estimated that under a scenario in which the UK met its renewable energy commitments, the average household electricity bill would be around £300 lower in 2030 than in 2023.

However, the £300 figure is based on the level of the energy price cap in July-September 2023. The price cap has since decreased (though is forecast to increase again later this year).

The £300 figure is also not a direct assessment of the impact of Labour’s plans, but an estimate of the impact of a different, less ambitious scenario than Labour is proposing.

Energy security and Net Zero minister Ed Miliband said the government had lifted a nine-year “ban” on onshore wind in England, during interviews on BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme [1:55:59] and Sky News this morning. This was similarly reported by the Times. 

As we’ve explained before, while policies introduced in 2015 were often described as a “de-facto ban”, due to a substantial decrease in applications for onshore wind sites, there was no formal ban on onshore wind farms as such. 

We’ve contacted Mr Miliband for comment and will update this blog if we receive a response.

Labour MP and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden seems to have confused the number of people on NHS waiting lists with the number of cases.

Giving a statement in the House of Commons on the Covid-19 Inquiry, Mr McFadden said: “As I stand here today with 8 million people on NHS waiting lists.”

This is a mistake we’ve seen a lot of and involves mixing up the number of cases on the main waiting list in England (7.6 million according to the latest data) with the number of individual people (around 6.4 million).

The number of cases will always be greater than the number of individual people because some people will be waiting for treatment for more than one thing.

We’ve fact checked similar claims a number of times over the last year—including when Mr McFadden used the 8 million figure in May.

In April 2024, the Office for National Statistics published waiting list survey data giving a greater insight into how many people are waiting across other types of waiting lists not covered by the main waiting list.

This indicated that in January and February 2024, around 21% of adults in England—or 9.7 million adults—were “currently waiting for a hospital appointment, test, or to start receiving medical treatment through the NHS”.

This claim was detected using Full Fact’s AI tools. You can find more about these on our website.

Over the weekend both Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury James Murray MP claimed that the “tax burden” was at its highest in 70 years.

We saw this claim being made by various Labour figures throughout the election campaign earlier this year, when referring to the so-called ‘tax burden’ (tax revenue as a percentage of GDP).

As we’ve explained previously, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), this was the case in 2022/23 when the tax burden reached 36.3%—the highest level since 1949 (when it stood at 36.9%) and the second highest since records began in 1948, when the tax burden was 37.2%. 

It’s since fallen slightly in 2023/24 to 36.1%. But current OBR forecasts—which are based on the previous government’s confirmed plans—show the tax burden is set to increase in each of the next five years, reaching 37.1% in 2028/29. That would be the second highest level on record.

However, it’s worth noting that under Labour’s plans the Institute for Fiscal Studies says the tax burden would increase at a slightly higher rate than under current OBR forecasts, reaching 37.4% by 2028/29. This would be the highest level on record.

On Sky News this morning presenter Kay Burley claimed the government has said it would reach the target of spending 2.5% of GDP on defence by the end of the current parliament. 

This isn’t correct. While Labour has said it is committed to the target of spending 2.5% of GDP on defence, it hasn’t set out a specific timeframe for achieving this.

Ms Burley’s comments came during an interview with Conservative shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge MP, who said Labour hadn’t set out a timescale. To this, she replied that Labour had said they’d reach it “by 2030”, before saying “by the course of this parliament is what they’ve said, they’ve not said 2030, they’ve said by the course of this parliament, and actually this parliament ends in 2029.” 

Ms Burley subsequently clarified later in the programme: “they haven’t publicly said that, but privately that is what they have been saying. So maybe I’ve disclosed more than I should, but yes that is what Labour is hoping to achieve although they haven’t said it in a public forum.”

Earlier this week, the government launched its Strategic Defence Review, which it said “will set out a roadmap to achieving 2.5% of GDP on defence”.

We’ve written more about Labour’s defence spending plans in our recent explainer.

Earlier today King Charles delivered the first King’s Speech for the new government, unveiling Labour’s legislative plans for the next year in Parliament.

A total of 39 bills were announced in the speech, the contents of which will now be debated across a number of days by MPs. 

As teased in the days leading up to the State Opening of Parliament, much of the speech revolved around Labour’s plans for growth, which we’ve written more about here.

The speech confirmed plans to introduce a Planning and Infrastructure Bill, as well as bills to establish Great British Energy and the National Wealth Fund, both of which are intended to facilitate investment in energy and green infrastructure.

Also announced today were plans to renationalise the majority of rail services, new worker’s rights reforms and a Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill.

Some of the bills announced in today’s speech, such as the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, had been announced by the previous Conservative government, but did not pass through Parliament before the general election.

Full Fact will continue to monitor proceedings in the House of Commons and will update this live blog with our latest analysis and verdicts on claims made during the debates.