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This week we’ve been continuing to trial a rolling live blog of political fact checks, where we provide ongoing coverage and commentary about what we’re fact checking in Westminster and beyond. We’ve included some examples below, and you can follow along here:
 
Live blog
FACT CHECKS

Rishi Sunak’s PMQs poverty claim refers to absolute, not relative, poverty


At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said “1.7 million fewer people are living in poverty”.

This is correct based on one measure of poverty, but others offer a different picture.

Mr Sunak’s figure appears to be based on the number of people in absolute poverty after housing costs, which has fallen by 1.7 million since 2009/10 according to the latest DWP figures published in March. The number in relative poverty after housing costs, however, is up by 900,000 over the same period.

‘Poverty’ is tricky to define because it means different things to different people. Relative low income measures the number of people in households where the income is below 60% of the national median that year.

Absolute low income measures the number of people in households where the income is below 60% of the median level in 2010/11, adjusted for inflation.
 

Sir Keir Starmer wrong at PMQs about number of people on NHS waiting list


At Prime Minister's Questions yesterday, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said that “7.8 million people are currently” on NHS waiting lists.

This isn’t what the latest NHS England figures show, as we wrote earlier this week about a similar claim.

There are an estimated 6.5 million individual patients waiting for treatment in England. 

They're waiting for 7.8 million treatment pathways to begin—as some individual patients might be waiting for multiple courses of treatment, and therefore on multiple treatment pathways.

Mr Starmer is the third Labour politician we’ve heard make this claim over the last week, alongside shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and MP Angela Eagle.

 

Google snippets falsely claimed eating glass has health benefits


Two featured snippets that appeared in Google search results earlier this week claimed that there are health benefits from eating glass. This is not true. Swallowing sharp objects, including pieces of glass, is potentially dangerous.

 

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MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...

All speed cameras on the M1 and M25 are not about to ‘go live’ enforcing a 72mph limit 

Myocarditis after Covid vaccines doesn’t kill one in five

Videos show volcano erupting in Iceland in 2021
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