Politics Live

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has corrected an error on its death statistics dashboard, after Full Fact got in touch.

The error concerned deaths from pneumonia or flu, which we have written about before.

Originally, the dashboard contained a line chart and an associated file of data, which claimed to show the number of people dying from “influenza and pneumonia”.

But strictly speaking, the chart showed the number of deaths from influenza or pneumonia, because not every death involved, or was due to, both conditions. 

This confusion can happen easily, because “influenza and pneumonia” is the name of a category in the International Classification of Diseases, which is widely used to code different causes of death. It has caused problems in the past, when the media reported this data in the mistaken belief that everyone in this category died from flu.

Helpfully, the ONS let us know on 3 April that it had fixed the page, which now refers to deaths caused by “influenza or pneumonia” instead. It fixed a similar problem a couple of years ago. 

We’re grateful to Labour MP Dr Allison Gardner, who corrected a Facebook post that mixed up the number of people and the number of cases on the NHS England waiting list.

Dr Gardner is the fifth MP in the current Parliament to correct a waiting list error after we contacted them. However, others have yet to correct similar errors, even though we have asked them to do so.

Our AI tools found a post by Dr Gardner on Saturday, which originally said there had been a record high of “nearly 8 million people” waiting for treatment under the Conservatives. In fact, as you can see in our waiting lists explainer, the backlog peaked at 6.5 million people—who were involved in about 7.8 million cases.

NHS England began to publish an estimate for the number of people on the waiting list in November 2023. Since then, we have taken action many times to address confusion between estimates for the number of people and the number of cases on the waiting list. The figures differ as some people are awaiting treatment for more than one thing.This latest correction came soon after we launched the #FactsMatter campaign. Find out more about how you can support us in our fight for a better information environment.  

“Facts Matter,” says Stephen Fry. “Verifiable, testable, provable facts. Without them, democracy falters, trust erodes and society drifts into a fog of deceit.”

Today is International Fact-Checking Day, a global initiative aimed at emphasising the crucial role of accurate information in our interconnected world.

This video is part of Full Fact's #FactsMatter campaign.

Journalist and Times Radio host Fi Glover explains why.

This video is part of Full Fact's #FactsMatter campaign.

The Labour MP Mike Reader has corrected a Facebook post that mixed up the number of people and the number of cases on the NHS England waiting list.

Our AI tools found a post by Mr Reader on Saturday, which originally said: “When the government took office last July, there was a staggering backlog of over 7.6 million people waiting for essential treatment.” 

In fact, as you can see in our waiting lists explainer, the backlog at the end of July 2024 was about 7.6 million cases, involving about 6.4 million people—some of whom were waiting for treatment for more than one thing. (These were the same as the figures for the end of June 2024, just before the election.) Mr Reader corrected this yesterday afternoon.

This is a very common source of confusion that we have written about many times since NHS England began to publish an estimate for the number of people on the waiting list in November 2023. 

On BBC 5 Live Breakfast this morning [2:31:40], the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer discussed a government announcement that means local authorities in England will be obliged to publish annual progress reports in order to access the maximum amount of highway maintenance funding. 

As was previously set out in a government announcement back in December, the total funding of £1.6 billion includes “an extra £500 million” for what the government is now calling the “roads pot”.

While speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, Mr Starmer said the funding being allocated to local authorities to fill the potholes was “enough for 700 million to be filled”. This appears to be incorrect and the Prime Minister may have misspoken, however. The government’s press release today says that £500 million of this funding could allow seven million potholes to be filled each year, not “700 million”, as the Prime Minister said. 

As we’ve written elsewhere, the average cost of filling a pothole in England and Wales is about £70, which means filling seven million would cost £490 million. So filling 700 million would cost £49 billion, which is far more than the Department for Transport’s entire annual departmental expenditure limit.

Estimates for the number of potholes vary. In January 2025, according to the RAC, the UK was “thought to have more than one million potholes”, though it said the figure varies seasonally. Between 2022 and 2023, the Asphalt Industry Alliance estimated 1.4 million potholes were filled. Whatever the accuracy of these specific figures, it seems unlikely there are 700 million potholes that need to be dealt with.

We’ve contacted Mr Starmer and No 10 about his claim today, and will update this blog if we receive a response.

The justice secretary Shabana Mahmood has today written to the Sentencing Council to object to new sentencing guidelines, due to come into force in England and Wales at the beginning of April. 

The new guidance gives greater emphasis to the importance of pre-sentence reports (which provide the court with additional information about an offender) in sentencing decisions, and sets out that a pre-sentence report should be considered “necessary” for members of certain groups. 

Writing on X (formerly Twitter), Ms Mahmood said: “Today’s updated guidelines do not represent my views or the views of this government. 

“I will be writing to the Sentencing Council to register my displeasure and to recommend reversing this change to guidance.”

She added: “There will never be a two-tier sentencing approach under my watch.”

In a further post this afternoon Ms Mahmood said she had written to the Council “to express my strong opposition to its newly published guidelines, which recommend different treatment based on ethnicity, culture and faith.”

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick has claimed the changes would make prison sentences less likely for certain individuals, such as ethnic minorities or members of minority faith groups. This is rejected by the Sentencing Council, which says pre-sentence reports “are not an indication of sentence”.

Some of the media coverage of the issue implies that Ms Mahmood has the power to prevent the guidelines coming into force. The Financial Times report for example was headlined “UK justice secretary to over-rule new sentencing advice over ‘double standards’”.

But under current rules, no such changes can be directly enforced by the government. The Ministry of Justice and the Sentencing Council both told Full Fact they believed the FT headline was inaccurate, with a Sentencing Council spokesperson adding: “The Sentencing Council is independent, and the Council decides what to include in our work programme independently of government or Parliament.” We’ve approached the FT for comment.

It’s been suggested that in order to overrule the Sentencing Council the government would have to change legislation, allowing it to veto the council’s plans. Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick appeared to acknowledge this, telling the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “If we need to change the law, we should do so.”

In her post this afternoon, Ms Mahmood said she was “reviewing the Sentencing Council’s role and its powers” and added: “If new laws are required, I will not hesitate to legislate.”

On Tuesday 4 March, during a House of Commons debate on regional growth, Labour MP for Blackley and Middleton South, Graham Stringer, challenged the Treasury over a claim chancellor Rachel Reeves made in January. She said then: “We haven’t built a new runway in Britain since the 1940s.”

Mr Stringer said this week: “Manchester airport would be very surprised to hear that, because its new runway has been operating for nearly 25 years.”

We wrote about Ms Reeves’ claim at the time, and found it to be incorrect for the same reason. 

Manchester Airport originally opened in 1938. A second runway was approved in 1997 and opened in 2001. According to the airport’s website, it remains the only airport in the UK outside London with two full-length runways. 

When we wrote to Ms Reeves about her claim we received a response from the Treasury which confirmed that the last full-length runway built in Britain was in Manchester in 2001, and that the last full-length runway built in the South East was in the 1940s. We’ve asked Ms Reeves to correct her claim but have not received a response.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones responded to Mr Stringer’s question but did not address the claim directly. He said: “I congratulate the operators of Manchester airport on running a successful business, which we will continue to support in the normal way.”

We are grateful to Mr Stringer for raising the matter in Parliament.

Earlier this week we wrote on this blog about an inaccurate claim made in Parliament by industry minister Sarah Jones MP, regarding projections about the UK’s economic growth.

During a debate in the House of Commons on 24 February, Ms Jones claimed: “The International Monetary Fund [IMF] and the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] predict that the UK will be Europe’s fastest-growing economy over the next few years.” 

That’s not what the latest projections show, however—the IMF and OECD have both projected that a number of European countries will have higher growth than the UK in 2025 and 2026.

When we contacted Ms Jones about this claim, her office told us she would correct the record. We’re grateful that Ms Jones has now done this, and that a formal written correction has been published in Hansard.

The corrected transcript now says: “The International Monetary Fund and the OECD predict that the UK will be Europe’s fastest-growing major G7 economy in the coming years.” This is indeed what IMF and OECD projections show.

Ms Jones is the first minister in the current government to have corrected the record in Hansard after being contacted by Full Fact about a misleading or inaccurate claim. We’ll be publishing a blog in the coming days with more details about other correction requests we’ve made which are still outstanding.

Support Full Fact’s continued efforts to hold government ministers accountable by setting up a monthly gift today.

US President Donald Trump last night delivered his first major address to Congress since beginning his second term in office, and spoke about his plans for the US economy, immigration and Ukraine.

His speech included a number of claims which we’ve recently looked at.

Mr Trump said that the US has spent “perhaps $350 billion” on support for Ukraine.

While the US has contributed more in overall aid to Ukraine since 2022 than any other country, we’ve not found any evidence to support this figure, and it’s considerably higher than other available estimates.

We wrote in detail last month about the figures on aid to Ukraine.

Mr Trump also claimed that the construction of the Panama Canal “came at a tremendous cost of American blood and treasure” and that “38,000 workers died” building it.

We fact checked a similar claim from Mr Trump during his inauguration speech in January—on that occasion he said the US “lost 38,000 lives”, though in his remarks yesterday it wasn’t quite clear if he was suggesting all those who died were American.

Either way, we’re not certain what the 38,000 figure is based on, but published estimates we’ve seen suggest this figure is too high if looking specifically at American deaths.

Last night the president also claimed that under the previous administration the US “suffered the worst inflation in 48 years, but perhaps even in the history of our country, they’re not sure”.

The US, like many other countries, has seen high levels of inflation in recent years, but not an all-time record. US inflation reached 9.1% in June 2022, which was its highest point since the early 1980s, but some way below the 23.7% inflation seen in 1920 (the highest level seen since current records began in 1914).

Fact checkers based in the United States have taken a look at more of the claims Mr Trump made about his domestic policies and the record of his predecessor in last night’s speech.