Fact checked: Rishi Sunak’s interview on day one of the campaign trail

23 May 2024

This morning Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in what will be one of many interviews during the six-week campaign. We spotted two claims we’ve looked at before, as well as a claim comparing the UK's GDP growth to other countries. 

Mr Sunak claimed: “The economy is growing faster than almost any other major country, including the United States”. As we’ve explained in our fact check, this is true based on the most recent figures for quarter-on-quarter GDP growth among the G7 in 2024, but other measures, such as annual GDP growth, paint a very different picture. 

Speaking about defence spending, Mr Sunak said Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer “has not matched” the Conservative government’s pledge to increase spending to 2.5% of GDP. But, as we’ve written about before, Labour has committed to increasing spending to this amount, though Mr Starmer hasn’t given a specific timescale for this and said only that he would do so “as soon as resources allow”. The Conservatives have pledged to do this by 2030. 

The Prime Minister also claimed “we’ve halved crime” when questioned on the Conservatives’ record in office over the past 14 years. Both Mr Sunak and policing minister Chris Philp have made similar claims several times before.

The claim is based on specific data from the crime survey for England and Wales (CSEW) which doesn't count fraud or computer misuse offences, so doesn't represent all crime.  

The latest survey data from December 2023 estimated that fraud and computer misuse accounted for just over 4 million of 8.4 million total offences. Compared with December 2022, fraud decreased by 16% and computer misuse increased by 29%.

There’s no comparable CSEW data including fraud and computer misuse offences from 2010, because the way the data was collected changed in 2015. Excluding these crimes, the survey estimated 9.7 million offences had occurred in 2010, compared with 4.1 million in 2023, which roughly equates to the 50% fall the Prime Minister referred to.

The CSEW currently records offences such as theft, robbery, criminal damage, fraud, computer misuse and violence with or without injury. Experiences of sexual assaults, stalking and harassment are presented separately.

Update: An earlier version of this blog said over 4.3 million crimes were fraud and computer misuse. We’ve corrected the error.

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