Question Time Leadersâ Special
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Honesty in public debate matters
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No evidence Rishi Sunak plans to pay people ÂŁ75,000 to leave the UK
Thousands of people have shared TikTok videos suggesting Rishi Sunak has plans to pay people ÂŁ75,000 to leave the UK.Â
But thereâs no such plan in the partyâs manifesto, and the claim appears to have first been shared by a parody account.Â
Read the full fact check here.Â
The âtax burdenâ: explained
Over the course of the election campaign weâve heard Labour repeatedly claim that under the Conservatives the so-called âtax burdenâ has reached the highest level in 70 years, while the Conservatives have claimed to be cutting peopleâs taxes.
Weâve just published a new explainer which takes a detailed look at whatâs happened to the tax burden in recent years, how it could be affected by Labour and Conservative proposals, and why a high tax burden doesnât necessarily mean everyone is paying more tax.
Statistic about fall in violent crime does not include sexual offences
The Conservative party and the home secretary, James Cleverly, have shared an image on X (formerly Twitter) claiming violent crime is down by 44%. But itâs worth noting that this figure does not include sexual offences. The figure has been calculated by comparing the most recent Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) data with the year before the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition took office. This shows a decrease in the annual estimates of âviolence incidentsââamong people aged 16 and overâfrom about 1.8 million offences in March 2010 to 1 million in December 2023. This is a fall of 44%, in line with an overall decline from a peak in violence offences in 1995. The CSEW figures on violent crime come from a section of the survey involving an interview, and are estimates for offences including wounding, assault with minor injury and violence without injury. But sexual offences are covered by a self-completion part of the survey, rather than an interview, and so are reported separately from these violent crime figures. The prevalence of sexual assault (including attempts but excluding causing sexual activity without consent) among adults aged 16 to 59 was 2.1% in the year to March 2010 and 2.2% in the year to March 2020 (the latest comparable data). The prevalence of rape or penetration (including attempts) was 0.4% in the year to March 2010 and 0.5% in the year to March 2020. More broadly, the ONS says the CSEW provides important information on longer-term crime trends, but advises it may not be the best measure of âhiger-harm but less common types of violence, such as those involving a knife or sharp instrument (knife-enabled crime)â, which it says are better observed by police recorded crime. Weâve contacted the Conservatives about this and will update this blog if we receive a response.  |
Neither the Conservatives nor Labour have earned votersâ trust so far
Both the Conservatives and Labour are misleading voters about the impact of each otherâs policies in this election.
It is misleading to say without proper context and caveats, as the Conservatives often have, that a Labour government would mean âÂŁ2,000 in higher taxes for every working familyâ. This figure is unreliable and based on questionable assumptions, not an independent forecast worth taking seriously.Â
Likewise, Labour is misleading people when it tells themâagain and again, also without due caveatsâthat Conservative plans âwill mean ÂŁ4,800 more on your mortgageâ. This figure is speculative and based on uncertain assumptions, so again talking like itâs reliable or definite misleads people.
No one knows exactly what will happen in the future. Taxes could indeed go up under Labour, or mortgages under the Conservatives. But as we and other fact checkers have shown, these figures are partisan attacks on a political enemy, not credible attempts to put a price on votersâ choices.Â
Itâs not only Full Fact and our supporters who think this kind of behaviour is unacceptable. The party leaders have said themselves that they need to earn peopleâs trust.
On becoming Prime Minister in 2022, Rishi Sunak said: âThis government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level. Trust is earned. And I will earn yours.â
In a speech at the start of this year, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: âWe have to bring the country together, have to earn trust as well as votes⊠And yet, trust in politics is now so low, so degraded, that nobody believes you can make a difference anymore.â The Labour party manifesto promises âthe highest standards of integrity and honestyâ.
Weâve not seen enough of this from either party so far. (We could make similar points about other parties, but we've chosen in this piece to focus on specific claims made by the two largest parties in the UK.)
Politicians should be truthful with voters because it is the right thing to do.Â
But if they need more convincing, there is evidence that the people whose votes they are fighting for are also among the most likely to distrust them.Â
A new Savanta poll commissioned by Full Fact shows that 78% of people who are unsure how to vote said they were not confident that the parties have run honest campaigns.Â
This is an opportunity for politicians who are prepared to behave differently.
Mr Sunak and Mr Starmer are both quite right to say that trust must be earnedâbut just saying so isnât good enough. They must prove they mean it in the final fortnight of the campaign.
Green Party corrects manifesto after Full Fact intervention
Following an intervention from Full Fact, the Green Party has corrected a claim in its manifesto about the number of people on NHS waiting lists.Â
The âlong versionâ of the manifesto, published on the partyâs website on 12 June, the day it was launched, stated: âThe long-term under funding of the NHS has left nearly 8 million of us on hospital waiting lists.âÂ
But as we wrote last week, this is not what NHS England data shows.Â
The latest referral to treatment (RTT) data when the manifesto was published showed that in March 2024 about 6.3 million people were waiting to begin about 7.5 million courses of treatment. (New data published since then shows that in April 2024 6.3 million people were waiting for about 7.6 million courses of treatment.)Â
There are always more cases than people in the data, because some people are awaiting treatment for more than one thing.
We wrote to the Green Party about this, and following our intervention, a corrected version of the manifesto has been published on the partyâs âmanifesto downloadsâ page, which reads: âThe long-term under funding of the NHS has left 6.3 million of us on hospital waiting lists.â
According to internet archive the WayBack Machine, the corrected manifesto was posted at some point on 13 June. (Itâs worth noting that the uncorrected version of the manifesto, though removed from the manifesto downloads page, still remains online and may be linked to from elsewhere.)
We are grateful to the Green Party for having made the correction.
The Green Party was one of four signatories to Full Factâs leadersâ pledge, which asked politicians to commit to being honest and transparent in the general election. This also included a commitment to our manifesto standards which require parties to correct errors in their manifestos when they have been notified of such. Plaid Cymru, the Alliance Party and the SDLP were also signatories to the pledge.
Full Factâs chief executive Chris Morris said: âFull Fact wants to increase trust in politics, not diminish itâbut it's up to our politicians to lead by example and earn that trust. This correction from the Green Party is the sort of behaviour that we hope to see from all parties when they are notified of an inaccuracy.â
We continue to call on all parties, and whoever forms the next government, to show bold leadership by committing to honesty and accuracy in all party communications.Â
BBC Question Time Leadersâ Special
This evening the leaders of four political parties will be questioned by members of the public in a two-hour Question Time Leadersâ Special.Â
The show will be hosted by Fiona Bruce and broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 8pm. Â
Each leader will face 30 minutes of questions from members of a live studio audience in York. The running order will be the Liberal Democratsâ Sir Ed Davey, the SNPâs John Swinney, Labourâs Keir Starmer and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for the Conservatives.Â
Full Factâs fact checkers will be following the programme live, and scrutinising in real time the claims made by the politicians, highlighting statements that we think are wrong, misleading or need more context.Â
You can follow our work on X (formerly Twitter) or here on Election Live throughout the show.
Honesty in public debate matters
You can help us take action â and get our regular free email
Reform UK wrong to claim 14 million forecast to arrive in the UK âin the next 12 yearsâ
Reform UK has claimed in a paid Facebook ad that 14 million people will arrive in the UK in the next 12 years, but thatâs not what official forecasts show.
The 14 million figure appears to be based on ONS national population projections, but those cover a 15 year period starting in mid-2021.
The ONS has confirmed to Full Fact that its projections indicate that 10.4 million will immigrate to the UK between now and mid-2036.
Itâs important to be clear that immigration figures alone donât show how migration impacts population growth.
When looking at net migrationâthat is, the number of people entering a country minus the number of people leavingâthe ONS forecasts that the population will grow by around 4.5 million over the next 12 years.
Read the full fact check here.
Fact checking the SNP manifesto
Full Factâs work to fact check manifestos continues, after Scottish First Minister and Scottish National Party leader John Swinney MSP launched his partyâs offering in Edinburgh this morning.Â
Weâve been checking the 32-page document with the help of Full Factâs AI tools, and identifying key claims to investigate.Â
Have a read of what weâve looked at so far here, with more to follow.Â
How many people in Scotland are on NHS waiting lists?
A claim weâve heard repeated by Scottish politicians over the election campaign is that one in six or seven Scots are on NHS waiting lists.Â
These figures are based on statistics published by Public Health Scotland (PHS), that track the number of ongoing waits for outpatient appointments, for inpatient or day case admissions, and for eight key diagnostic tests. Itâs reached by combining the number of waits on each of these three lists, then dividing that by Scotlandâs estimated population.Â
But this misrepresents the data. PHS says this calculation shouldnât be done as some patients are counted more than once on these lists if theyâre waiting for multiple things. The total cases on these lists is 840,000 but this doesnât reflect the number of people waiting.Â
We donât know exactly how many individuals, or what proportion of Scotlandâs population, is on an NHS waiting list because PHS doesnât provide this data.
You can read more about this here.Â