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.
The ‘long version’ of the manifesto, published on the party’s website on 12 June, the day it was launched, stated: “The long-term under funding of the NHS has left nearly 8 million of us on hospital waiting lists.”
But as we wrote last week, this is not what NHS England data shows.
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.)
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 party’s ‘manifesto downloads’ page, which reads: “The long-term under funding of the NHS has left 6.3 million of us on hospital waiting lists.”
According to internet archive the WayBack Machine, the corrected manifesto was posted at some point on 13 June. (It’s 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 Fact’s leaders’ 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 Fact’s chief executive Chris Morris said: “Full Fact wants to increase trust in politics, not diminish it—but 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.”
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.