What was claimed
The UK is spending £680 million to build a new railway line in Turkey.
Our verdict
This figure refers to a loan being underwritten by the UK government, not money being directly invested by the government into the project.
The UK government is not building a multimillion pound railway line in Turkey
26 July 2023
Earlier this week Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham tweeted a screenshot of a UK government press release with the headline “UK announces £680m for new high-speed electric railway in Turkey”.
Alongside the screenshot, Mr Burnham tweeted “So we can’t afford to keep our own ticket offices open - but we can afford to build a new line in Turkey?”
A number of similar posts have also been shared on Facebook.
Mr Burnham’s suggestion that the UK is financing a new railway line in Turkey is misleading—the £680 million figure used in the government press release refers to a loan provided by three banks (J.P. Morgan, ING Bank and BNP Paribas) which has been underwritten by the UK government’s export credit agency. The Italian and Austrian export credit agencies are also providing reinsurance.
It is not money being directly invested in the project by the UK government.
The headline of the UK government press release has since been changed to more clearly reflect this, and now reads “UK backs £680m loan guarantee for new high-speed electric railway in Turkey”.
The press release also states that the loan guarantee has been given “on the condition that UK exporters supply to the project”.
If a politician makes a misleading claim on social media, they should correct this quickly in a clear and transparent manner, including on the same platform where the claim was made. We’ve contacted Mr Burnham’s office for comment.
Image courtesy of Pixabay
We deserve better than bad information.
After we published this fact check, we contacted Andy Burnham to request a correction regarding this claim.
Mr Burnham did not respond.
It’s not good enough.
Will you add your name for better standards in public debate?
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as missing context because the press release shared in the post refers to a loan being underwritten by the UK government, not money being directly invested by the government into the project.