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At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claimed that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) “is now forecasting that we will have stronger growth than Germany, France and Italy”.
Mr Sunak did not specify what time period he was referring to. It is true that when looking at the IMF’s projections for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth from 2025 onwards, the UK is forecast to have higher growth than Germany, France and Italy.
But when looking at its forecasts for growth over the next two years, projections for UK GDP growth are among the lowest in the G7.
Government ministers and their departments must take care to present data and statistics with all necessary context and caveats. If data is presented without context or caveats, it can give an incomplete or misleading picture.
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TEAM NEWS
On Wednesday night, the Full Fact team were delighted to accept the prestigious British Academy President’s Medal.
The award is given for outstanding contributions to humanities and social sciences, and was given to Full Fact in recognition of our work finding, exposing and countering misinformation and misleading claims.
This is the first time this award has gone to an organisation rather than an individual, and we have all of our wonderful supporters to thank for this achievement. President of the British Academy, Professor Julia Black said on the night, “nobody gets where they are on their own”. We wholeheartedly agree. So a huge thank you to all of you for making our work not only possible, but so impactful.
And our work doesn’t stop here. With an election on the way, honesty in public debate is crucial. More than 45,000 people have now joined us to say they want more from their MPs. We have shown that together, we can make a difference and change the way our democracy works.
With your support, we will make sure that in the next election and beyond, we will restore honesty and integrity in politics and create higher standards of political debate.
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FACT CHECK
On 8 May, the government announced new plans for the way that people access healthcare in England.
This included the Pharmacy First scheme, which will make it easier to get prescription-only medicines for seven common conditions without seeing a GP.
When describing the new scheme, both the Prime Minister and NHS England said it was the “first time” that such a service would be available from pharmacists.
This is broadly true, but it doesn’t mean that pharmacists in England couldn’t prescribe medicines already. A minority of pharmacists have been able to prescribe medicines since at least 2003.
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FACT CHECK
In a speech on healthcare on 22 May, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said that the suicide rate is going up.
Labour has told us that Mr Starmer’s claim was based on data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for the rate of suicides registered in England and Wales, which does show a general rising trend between its low point in 2007 and 2021. However data for the last few years is less clear, and trends vary according to which year you start from.
Any life lost by suicide is a terrible event. Public figures should try to describe this complex subject as accurately as possible, with appropriate context and caveats, to improve our chance of reducing the harm it causes.
ONS data on suicide occurrences may give a more reliable picture of recent trends, because it is less affected by changing delays to inquests, although it is subject to possible revisions.
This appears to show relatively little change in the rate of suicides between 2013, when the dataset begins, and 2021. Again, there are periods in the data when the rate is rising, but it has fallen in the last two years, and was slightly lower in 2021 than in 2013, although the figures could be revised in future.
We don’t yet have clear data on the rate of suicides that occurred in 2022, which may eventually show that it rose or that it fell.
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MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
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All the best,
Team Full Fact
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