Misleading Parliament

22 Apr 2022 | Full Fact's weekly news

UPDATE
Yesterday MPs voted to investigate whether the Prime Minister lied to Parliament, and to the public

We are fact checkers. Our work focuses on facts and evidence, and sometimes the complete lack of it. It is up to you to decide for yourself whether somebody has lied.

As you’ll read below, we do know that the Prime Minister has repeatedly misled the House of Commons with a claim that Full Fact, the Office for Statistics Regulation and others have repeatedly warned him about using.

Meanwhile the Labour party is campaigning in the local elections with an unreliable and highly exaggerated estimate of the impact of the cost of living crisis.

Unfortunately our elected leaders don’t always live up to the standards of honesty and integrity that we’d like
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FACT CHECK
Labour party leaflets repeat false claim on cost of living

Labour are selling election leaflets to their supporters that prominently feature a false claim about the cost of living crisis. They are also running adverts on Facebook with the same claim.

One of the leaflets says: “The Conservative Government’s cost of living crisis means families are £2,620 worse off.”

But official figures suggest that the average family will be about £700 worse off this year, not £2,620.

Although it’s true to say the average household is expected to experience a large fall in its living standards this year, Labour’s calculations are flawed.

Labour arrived at the figure by adding together several unexplained or unreliable estimates for different cost rises. Crucially, Labour did not offset these costs against rises in benefits or wages.

Using estimates from the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Office for National Statistics, changes in living standards would actually equate to a fall of about £700 per household. This is still a significant amount - but Labour’s estimate is far too high.

This figure has also been cited by MPs, including Keir Starmer himself. We believe these leaflets should be withdrawn, and corrections should be issued.

Why the figure is unreliable

FACT CHECK
Boris Johnson wrong on employment figures…again

We were dismayed to hear the Prime Minister make a false employment claim in Parliament for the ninth time.

Over the last five months, he has frequently claimed that there are more people in work now than there were before the pandemic began. But official ONS figures prove otherwise.

At the end of last month, Boris Johnson said he “thinks” he has taken steps to correct the record on this issue. He has not. We will continue to work hard to secure corrections.

The latest episode of PM-Wrong-On-Employment-Figures

If either party wants to criticise the other for failing to correct mistakes, they must set an example by doing it themselves.

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Every day our team of fact checkers and campaigners find, check and challenge false claims. Your job will be to make our voice heard in the daily news cycle.

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BRIEFING
Second Reading of the Online Safety Bill in Parliament (PDF)

This week, MPs debated the Online Safety Bill during a Second Reading of the Bill in Parliament.

The new legislation will bring in new rules for internet companies to make sure their users are protected from harm that can take place on their platforms.

We’re concerned that the Bill won't go far enough to effectively tackle the harms from bad information online, while safeguarding freedom of expression.

MP John Nicolson referenced our concerns in the debate, for which we thank him.

We wrote to all MPs to brief them on our key concerns around the Bill, which you can read below.

Our briefing (PDF)

MORE FACT CHECKS
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