The final Sunday morning politics shows before polling day: fact checked

With just days to go before voters head to the polls on 4 July, this morning saw the election campaign’s final round of Sunday politics shows. 

On the BBC’s extended Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “Our school children are now the best readers in the western world”. His deputy, Oliver Dowden, made a similar claim on Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips. 

As we’ve written before, this claim appears to be based on the results of the latest Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, which took place for primary school pupils in England in 2022. However it’s worth noting that according to a different measure, Programme for International Student (PISA) test results, 15-year-old pupils in Ireland, Canada and the US had a higher average reading score than those in England in 2022. 

Also on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Labour’s national campaign coordinator Pat McFadden was asked how the party’s net zero plans would cut energy bills by £300 per year. He responded by referring to Labour’s plans to drive “the transition to renewables”. But, as was pointed out by Ms Kuenssberg, the £300 figure is out of date and is not based on an assessment of Labour’s plans. We’ve also explained this fully in our fact check here. 

Mr Sunak said independent forecasts show the so-called “tax burden” under a Labour government would “rise to the highest level in our nation’s history”. It’s true that analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies does suggest the tax burden would increase under Labour’s plans and by 2028/29 reach the highest level on record. But the same analysis also forecasts the tax burden to increase under the Conservatives’ plans, though slightly less than under Labour. 

The IFS says the Conservative plans could mean the tax burden is at the third highest level on record by 2028/29.