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Dear Friend,
Yesterday the House of Commons Procedure Committee released their report that we told you about last week. They have agreed with us that the corrections system in Parliament is not fit for purpose and have set out some recommendations for how to fix it.
If implemented, all MPs would finally be able to correct their mistakes on the official record.
Full Fact supporters helped make this happen. Thanks to you, we were able to appear in front of the Committee, provide written evidence, and show them that almost 50,000 people think that upholding the highest possible standards of honesty and accuracy is absolutely crucial for democracy.
These recommendations address significant shortcomings with the current system—shortcomings we highlighted in our evidence. But this alone won’t rebuild public trust. MPs and ministers who refuse to correct the record when asked must be held to account.
Friend, what happens next is vital. A debate will be scheduled for MPs to vote on the recommendations from the report. When this happens, we need as many MPs as possible to show up, so we’re asking our supporters to write to their MPs to show that this matters to them. Will you ask your MP to speak in the debate and stand up for honesty?
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Thank you, you are making a difference.
Andrew Dudfield—Interim Chief Executive
Full Fact
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FACT CHECK
On 14 June Labour MP Kim Johnson tweeted that “the number of children living in poverty” had risen “from 2.6m in 2010 to 4.2m now.”
It is correct that the latest government statistics show that in 2021/22 there were 4.2 million children in relative poverty, after housing costs were taken into account. But this is not comparable with the 2.6 million figure in Ms Johnson’s tweet which refers to the number of children in relative poverty before housing costs in 2009/10.
While it is correct that the number of children in relative poverty has increased, using comparable figures gives an increase of about 300,000 over this period, far fewer than the 1.6 million implied by Ms Johnson’s tweet.
Ms Johnson’s tweet included a retweeted clip of her speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions on the same day, where she said that new data showed that the “Government’s austerity measures have plunged 4.2 million children into poverty”.
Ms Johnson was referring to a report published by the End Child Poverty Coalition and the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University earlier this month, a press release for which states that the number of children in poverty increased to 4.2 million in 2021/22.
The study did not make a link between the government’s austerity policies and this increase, but did note (though without demonstrating causality) that the increase in children in poverty in 2021/22 followed the end of the £20 uplift in the weekly payment of Universal Credit provided to claimants during the pandemic.
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FACT CHECK
During a debate in Parliament earlier this month, Conservative MP Bob Seely claimed that 100,000 “ghost kids” had “disappeared off the [school] rolls” following school closures during the pandemic. This is an old claim, and one we have fact checked many times before.
Describing the 100,000 figure in this way is misleading, because it doesn’t actually relate to the number of children who left school during pandemic school closures, but rather the number of children in England who missed at least half of their possible school sessions in the 2020 Autumn term.
We contacted Bob Seely to request a correction regarding this claim. Mr Seely is yet to respond to this.
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MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
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All the best,
Team Full Fact
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