This week we’re celebrating a big win, looking at BBC claims about the NHS, spotting deepfakes, and taking a deeper look at the asylum backlog.
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Dear Friend,
Great news! the Speaker of the House of Commons has responded to Full Fact’s campaign for a new system in Parliament allowing MPs to correct the record when they make a false or misleading claim.
Following a campaign supported by 50,000 Full Fact supporters to improve the broken Parliamentary system. The Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, announced that from this week MPs now have equal power to correct the record.
In an election year, it’s more important than ever that MPs correct the record when they get things wrong.
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Full Fact supporters signed a petition calling for backbench MPs to have the same power as ministers in the Commons to correct the record. The previous process was cumbersome and very few MPs used it.
Full Fact is calling on all MPs to use the new system whenever they find out they’ve made a false or misleading factual claim. In addition to this, we need to see additional measures that hold MPs to account when they refuse to correct false or misleading claims.
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Craig, Digital Campaigns Manager—Full Fact
** BBC Breakfast gets the increase in people waiting for NHS treatment wrong ([link removed])
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On Thursday 11 April, BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty stated that 620,000 more people were waiting for NHS elective care compared to when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took office, but that isn’t quite right.
The numbers Ms Munchetty cited refer to the number of cases or ‘pathways’, not individual people, and the 620,000 figure doesn’t seem to account for missing data. Around the time when Mr Sunak took office, there were an estimated 7.21 million total pathways open.
This means that there has been an increase of around 360,000 pathways between then and January 2024, when there were 7.58 million total pathways.
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** Sadiq Khan ‘Remembrance Weekend’ audio clip is likely a deepfake ([link removed])
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An audio clip that alleges to be a recording of London mayor, Sadiq Khan, saying he doesn’t care about “Remembrance weekend”, is circulating online. But this comes from a longer recording that Full Fact has found no evidence is real and is likely to be a deepfake.
Both Mr Khan and the Metropolitan Police have previously confirmed that the longer recording is not genuine. The longer version first appeared in November 2023 amid tensions over a pro-Palestinian march in London that was scheduled for Armistice Day.
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** The UK asylum backlog: explained ([link removed])
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Claims about the asylum backlog from across the political spectrum will likely feature in the upcoming general election campaign.
Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be publishing longer pieces on areas we think will likely shape the different campaigns. This is the first and focuses on the asylum backlog.
Snapshot:
* “Asylum backlog” generally refers to pending asylum applications awaiting initial decisions by the government.
* As of December 2023, 95,252 asylum applications were awaiting initial decisions, down 28% from the previous year.
* There are two main categories within the backlog: the “legacy backlog” and the “flow backlog.”
* The flow backlog cases have increased, totaling 94,062 as of December 2023, and the number is expected to increase while there is no removal procedure in operation.
Read more ([link removed])
Previous claims:
* How many people were ‘deported’ from the UK in 2023? ([link removed])
* Post exaggerates benefits available to asylum seekers ([link removed])
* Conservative estimate that UK would take 100,000 migrants a year under Labour plan is not reliable ([link removed])
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MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
* Incorrect claim about how much MPs can claim for breakfast recirculates online ([link removed])
* Do we know which nation is happiest with the NHS? ([link removed])
* Telegraph headline misrepresents estimate of foreign aid spent within UK ([link removed])
Read our latest fact checks ([link removed])
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