Policing minister wrong to claim UK is projected to have the ‘fastest growing economy in Europe’

“The IMF and the OECD are saying that we’re going to have the fastest growing economy in Europe.”

On Sky News this morning, policing minister Dame Diana Johnson MP claimed that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) say the UK is “going to have the fastest growing economy in Europe.”

We’ve seen several government ministers make similar claims in recent weeks, but this isn’t what the IMF and the OECD’s latest figures show.

Figures published by the IMF last month project that the UK’s GDP will increase by 1.6% in 2025 and by 1.5% in 2026, but that both Spain (2.3% and 1.8%) and Poland (3.5% and 3.3%) will have higher GDP growth in both years. The Netherlands is projected to have similar GDP growth to the UK in 2025 (1.6%) and higher growth in 2026 (1.8%).

The OECD also projected, in figures published in December 2024, that several European countries will have higher GDP growth in both 2025 and 2026 than the UK (1.7% and 1.3%), including Spain (2.3% and 2%), Denmark (2.5% and 1.7%) and Poland (3.4% and 3%).

2026 is the latest year for which these organisations have published projections and we’ve not seen any other comments from the IMF or OECD to support this claim.

It’s possible Dame Diana meant to say that the UK was projected to have the fastest growth among European economies in the G7. The IMF and the OECD’s latest figures both project that the UK will have faster growth than France, Germany and Italy—the other three European countries in the group. Chancellor Rachel Reeves and other government ministers have said previously that the UK is projected to be the fastest growing “major” European economy. 

And when we asked health minister Karin Smyth about a similar claim she made last month, she told us that she had misspoken when claiming the IMF had projected the UK would be the fastest growing European economy, and that she had instead intended to refer to ”major” European economies, meaning those in the G7.

If an MP makes a false or misleading claim on broadcast media they should take responsibility for ensuring it is appropriately corrected, and make efforts to ensure the correction is publicly available to anyone who might have heard the claim. We’ve contacted Dame Diana and the Home Office for comment and will update this fact check if we receive a response.