Minister corrects parliamentary record after Full Fact intervention

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.

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