Summaries of our latest fact checks to take you into the long weekend

15 Apr 2022 | Full Fact's weekly news
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Onto our latest fact checks in this bumper Easter newsletter:

FACT CHECK
Thérèse Coffey wrong to claim employment is up over the pandemic

“Despite the challenges of the last two years, unemployment is down and employment is up, and there are 662,000 more employees on company payrolls and earning more money than before the pandemic.” - Thérèse Coffey in a video for DWP’s Twitter page

But employment is not up. The number of people in employment fell by 580,000 between the three months to February 2020 and the three months to January 2022. The employment rate also fell by 1 percentage point in this time.

While the number of employees has grown, the number of self-employed people has fallen by around 800,000. Suggesting that the employee figure is the total employment figure masks this fall.

This is particularly frustrating because we’ve corrected false employment claims like this so, so, so many times. The Prime Minister has incorrectly claimed in Parliament eight times that there are more people in employment now than there were before the pandemic. Several other MPs have joined him in making this claim.

The list of MPs in full: Boris Johnson, Paul Scully, Jerome Mayhew, Nadine Dorries, Mark Spencer, Nigel Mills, Rob Butler, Stephen McPartland and Suella Braverman.

This is another reason why we think it’s so important that politicians publicly correct false statements. Click here ([link removed]) to sign our petition to demand honesty from our politicians.
Another MP gets employment claim wrong ([link removed])
FACT CHECK
Keir Starmer wrong to say families will be £2,620 worse off this year ([link removed])

Launching Labour’s local elections campaign, Keir Starmer has been claiming that families would be an average of £2,620 worse off this year under the Conservatives. While the average household in the UK is expected to be significantly worse off this year, this particular figure is flawed.

Labour reached this figure by adding five different cost rises:
* tax rises: £1,060
* energy £690
* petrol £300
* food £275
* mortgage £295

This does not include anything that might start to offset some of those rises, like an increase in wages or benefits. But the costings themselves are unreliable too.

For example, this calculation assumes the “average” household has the equivalent of a £100,000 variable-rate mortgage. But only 30% of households in England have a mortgage. There are problems with the other calculations too, which we go through in depth in our article.

So how will household budgets actually be affected in 2022? The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates real household disposable incomes per person will fall by 2.2%. Using ONS data on median household disposable income, we can estimate this would mean that households will be around £700 worse off this year.

This is a very substantial fall indeed, but means Labour’s estimate is three/four times too large.
How it's all calculated ([link removed])
FACT CHECK
Nadine Dorries didn’t say ‘food doesn’t grow on trees’ ([link removed])

A widely shared screenshot claims to show a tweet from Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, which reads: “I am fed up of the loony left moaning about the rising demand for food banks. Every family needs to live within their means. Food doesn’t grow on trees!”.

A spokesperson confirmed the tweet is fake. There are also other signs that suggest the tweet isn’t genuine. There’s no sign of it on Ms Dorries’ Twitter feed, and no trace of it on a site that tracks MP’s deleted tweets.

How we know it's fake ([link removed])
FACT CHECK
Viral comparison of refugee and pensioner incomes is wrong ([link removed])

An old post from 2020 is going viral on Facebook again, having racked up over 30,000 shares. But it’s false. The post makes two key claims:

It begins by claiming that the “maximum” state pension in the UK is £141 a week, before asserting that illegal immigrants get an annual allowance of £29,900. Both figures are wrong.

A state pension in the UK is between £141 and £185 a week. But this doesn’t include other benefits some pensioners are also entitled to, like pension credit, free prescriptions, TV licences and winter fuel payments.

Many also receive a private pension that both they and their employer contributed to throughout their working life.

As for illegal immigrants, people who have entered the UK illegally and have not received the right to remain in the UK, or whose permission to stay has ended, cannot claim most benefits. Eligible asylum seekers, on the other hand, can claim just £40 a week.

Those who receive refugee status can apply for benefits. We don’t recognise this £29,900 figure, though. This is significantly higher than the benefits cap. Even a refugee living as a single parent with dependent children in London would receive a maximum of £23,000 a year.

A closer look at the figures ([link removed])
INTERVENTIONS
Corrections corner
Labour ([link removed])

In a social media graphic, the Labour Party claimed Rishi Sunak spent £8.7bn on “dodgy PPE so useless it will have to be burnt.” But not all of this was burnt, some was used, donated or recycled.

We contacted them about this, but the party has chosen to take no action. This isn’t good enough. If Labour expect the government to correct their mistakes, they should lead by example and do this themselves.

Conservatives ([link removed])

On the BBC’s Politics Live, MP Scott Benton claimed the “vast majority of people coming across the Channel are economic migrants”. But there’s no evidence for this claim. In fact, analysis shows this is not the case.

We contacted Mr Benton and he told us he will not be issuing a correction. Similarly, this is not good enough. MPs should back up what they say in public with evidence.

Full Fact(!) ([link removed])

Thank you to a reader who spotted that in a previous email we said the Prime Minister was ‘getting it wrong’ on a claim about crime rates. In fact, as our article said, Boris Johnson was not factually wrong on this matter - although his comments were misleading.

If you spot what you think is a (hopefully rare) mistake in our work, please do contact us. Email us on [email protected] or contact us directly on WhatsApp: 07521770995.
MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
* GB News interview features misleading claims about Covid and vaccines ([link removed])
* There is no upper limit for how much MPs can claim to cover heating costs ([link removed])
* The Great Reset: What is it? ([link removed])

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