Politics Live

In an interview on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, health secretary Victoria Atkins claimed that the number of doctors working in general practice has increased since before the pandemic.

She said: “If I may on the GP point, we in fact have 2,711 more GPs working in the NHS than even in 2019.”

As we’ve written before, there are different ways to count the number of GPs. Ms Atkins’ figures are correct if you look at the total number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) GPs in England, which includes those in training. But the number of fully qualified FTE GPs has fallen over the same period. (Doctors are not officially GPs while they are training, but they do perform some of the work of GPs and so ‘GPs in Training Grade’ are included in NHS figures.) 

In March 2019 the total number of FTE GPs in England, including those in training, was 34,526. This increased to 37,237 in April 2024—a rise of 2,711, which matches the figure cited by Ms Atkins.

But during the same period the number of fully qualified FTE GPs in England—ie, not including those in training—fell by 880, from 28,486 in March 2019 to 27,606 in April this year.

Health is devolved, so the UK government is only responsible for health services in England.

Image courtesy of BBC

Update 2 June: We've updated the headline of this post, and the way we describe the total number of FTE GPs to be clearer about the metric.

On BBC Question Time last night, the host Fiona Bruce and Reform UK honorary president Nigel Farage provided conflicting percentages for the amount spent by the government on healthcare.

Mr Farage said: “We’re now spending over 10% of our national cake on the NHS every year… Even regardless of population, we’ve increased in percentage terms enormously under this government.”

But he was then challenged by Ms Bruce, who said “actually about 18% of total spending is on health”. Mr Farage responded that it was “between 10 and 11”. 

The figures seem contradictory, and we’ve since had viewers contact Full Fact asking us to clarify which speaker was correct.

But from our analysis, it appears that neither was wrong, and they were simply quoting different measures of healthcare spending. 

We’ve asked Reform UK what figures Mr Farage was referring to, and haven’t had a response. But according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), UK healthcare expenditure in 2022 (the most up to date annual data) was around £283 billion, of which £230 billion was government healthcare spending, and the rest made up of non-government spending, such as voluntary health insurance.

If all healthcare spending (which includes non-government healthcare expenditure) is viewed as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), then it was 11.3% of GDP in 2022, according to the ONS. 

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which also calculates healthcare spending as a share of GDP, provisionally says that in 2022 the UK spent 9.3% of GDP on government healthcare.

Mr Farage also compared how much the government is spending on health now with previous years. “Go back six, seven years, we were spending about 7% of our national cake on the NHS every year,” he said.

This would broadly align with the OECD statistics which record it as 7.9% in 2015 and 7.8% in 2016. (The term ‘national cake’ is sometimes used as slang for GDP.)

When Ms Bruce appeared to correct Mr Farage’s figure during the show, she said total “government spending” on health was actually “about 18%”. 

The BBC has told Full Fact Ms Bruce was referring to a different measure—healthcare spending as a proportion of total managed expenditure (TME), which is the total amount of money that the government spends each year.

In 2022/23, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, health spending equated to 18.3% of TME—which was the source Ms Bruce quoted from.

(It’s worth noting that when we wrote about current health spending earlier this year and calculated a 2023/24 figure, using Treasury estimates, it was a bit lower.) 

So, while potentially confusing for people watching the programme, it appears neither Mr Farage or Ms Bruce was necessarily wrong, if talking about 2022 spending—although they could have been more clear about which data they were referring to.

Image courtesy of BBC

A few people have asked us about an image circulating online of a billboard which shows the Labour logo and a photo of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, alongside the words: “‘Israel has the right’ to cut off food, water & electricity to 2 million people in Gaza - Keir Starmer.”

Although it’s been shared on X (formerly Twitter), and a similar image has been shared on Instagram, with the caption “Labour campaign posters going up for the General Election”, apparently jokingly, it is not a genuine Labour poster. And it’s not a recent image either, having been shared at least as far back as last December.

The Instagram account of the Tower Hamlets Palestine Solidarity Network posted a video on 23 December 2023 appearing to show the poster being put up, with a caption saying “Bethnal Green, London”. But it’s unclear who’s behind the poster and we’ve not been able to confirm the location of the billboard or if it is still there. We’ve asked the network about this but not had a response. 

The comment from Mr Starmer which appears in the image comes from an LBC interview on 11 October 2023, in the wake of the 7 October Hamas attacks against Israel.

When asked by presenter Nick Ferrari what a proportionate response was in his view, Mr Starmer said: “I think the first thing I have to say is responsibility lies with Hamas. This is cold-blooded murder of men, women, even children. It is terrorism and Israel has the right to defend herself. And there are ongoing situations with hostages and Israel has the right to do everything that it can to get those hostages back safe and sound, and therefore I’m very clear Israel must have that, does have that right, to defend herself, and Hamas bears responsibility.”

Mr Ferrari then said: “A siege is appropriate? Cutting off power, cutting off water?” 

Mr Starmer responded: “I think that Israel does have that right. It is an ongoing situation. Obviously everything should be done within international law, but I don’t want to step away from the core principles that Israel has a right to defend herself, and Hamas bears responsibility for these terrorist acts.”

Mr Starmer later sought to clarify his remarks, telling broadcasters on 20 October: “I was saying Israel had the right to self defence, and when I said that right, it was that right to self defence. I was not saying that Israel had the right to cut off water, food, fuel or medicines.”

In the run-up to the general election on 4 July, here at Full Fact we will be ‘live fact checking’ a number of events throughout the campaign, holding candidates to account in real time for the claims they make, and ensuring voters have access to information they can trust. That includes the first TV election debate between Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer next Tuesday.  

Tonight we’ll be tuning in to BBC One’s Question Time, which comes from Epsom, Surrey, and will feature Conservative schools minister Damian Hinds, Labour shadow health secretary Wes Streeting, Reform UK honorary president Nigel Farage, Bishop of Dover Rose Hudson-Wilkin and journalist and broadcaster Piers Morgan. 

We’ll be scrutinising claims by the panel, and calling out claims we think are wrong or which would benefit from additional explanation. During the programme, you can follow our updates on X (formerly Twitter) here (and tag the @FullFact account if there’s a claim you think we should be looking at). 

Labour has claimed NHS waiting lists could rise to 10 million if the Conservatives win the general election. But analysts say lists are likely to “at worst flatline”, whichever party forms the next government.

The Labour party’s claim was widely reported in yesterday’s papers, after it announced its steps to clear the NHS backlog in England in five years.

The latest data from NHS England shows waiting lists were at 7.5 million at the end of March 2024, with an estimated 6.3 million individuals waiting for elective NHS care.

But the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says Labour’s analysis has predicted a “highly unlikely” outcome.

In its press release, Labour claimed: “Waiting lists have increased by 600,000 over the 17 months Rishi Sunak has been Prime Minister. If they continue to increase at the same rate (1.09) for the next five years, they will exceed 10 million.”

IFS research economist Max Warner said the claim rests on the “very strong assumption” that future NHS performance will remain the same as past performance.

“In reality, the NHS has substantially increased treatment volumes in the past year, and the waiting list has already started to fall,” he said.

“Even in a world where treatment volumes grow more slowly than set out in the NHS workforce plan, our modelling suggests that the waiting list is likely to fall slowly, or at worst flatline, in the coming years. In other words, whichever party forms the next government, waiting lists are highly unlikely to climb to 10 million.”

Full Fact has contacted Labour for more insight into how they reached the figure.

Our NHS waiting list explainer sets out exactly what is happening with NHS waits.

This morning, Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting twice quoted figures for the number of people on the NHS waiting list in England. 

On the Today programme [2:13:55], Mr Streeting said “there are 7.5 million people on an NHS waiting list”, and on BBC Breakfast [1:40:16] he referred to “8 million people who are stuck” on these lists. 

But that’s not what the latest NHS England data shows. As of the end of March 2024, there are 7.5 million cases on the waiting list, involving about 6.3 million individual patients. There are always more cases than individuals on the list because some people are awaiting treatment for more than one condition.

We’ve seen other politicians and parties get this wrong too. Last week a campaign video from the Labour Party, shared by Mr Streeting and deputy leader Angela Rayner, also made the claim that “seven and a half million people are on waiting lists”.

This morning Mr Streeting also said Labour had seen the shortest waiting times and highest patient satisfaction ever.

We’ve written about these claims before—waiting lists have been measured in different ways since the NHS was founded in 1948 and we couldn’t find a consistent measure of patient satisfaction over this period, so we can’t say for sure if either claim is true.

Following an intervention by Full Fact, MailOnline has corrected an error in a Richard Littlejohn column which didn’t accurately reflect NHS waiting list data in England. 

The article originally repeated a familiar claim that there are more than seven million people awaiting some form of NHS treatment in England. But this figure refers to the number of treatments people are waiting for, not the number of individual patients. 

According to the latest referral to treatment (RTT) data, collected at the end of March 2024, about 6.3 million people were waiting to begin about 7.5 million courses of treatment.

The article has now been amended and we thank the Daily Mail for clarifying this point.

On BBC Breakfast [1:38:45] and the Today programme [2:13:16] this morning, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Mel Stride repeated a claim that the government having reduced National Insurance contributions by one third “is worth a tax cut of £900 to an average earner”. 

As we have explained before, the £900 figure refers to savings from reductions to employee National Insurance contributions (NICs). In January the main rate for NICs was reduced from 12% to 10%, and in April it was lowered from 10% to 8%. 

It’s right that an employee on the average full-time salary (£35,400) will pay about £900 less in NICs due to the combined four percentage point reduction than they would have were the main rate to have stayed at 12%.

However, the £900 figure only relates to the specific impact of the reduction in NICs and Mr Stride’s claim would benefit from additional context. Other changes, such as ongoing freezes to the thresholds at which people begin paying NICs and income tax, mean the overall savings this year for someone on the average salary are substantially smaller.

Once the impact of all tax changes since 2021 are factored in, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says the average worker stands to save £340 in 2024/25, while those earning less than £26,000 a year will actually be worse off. 

The IFS adds: “By 2027–28, after another three years of real-terms cuts to tax thresholds, the net effect of income tax and NICs changes since 2021 for the average full-time earner will be a tax cut of £140 per year.”

Yesterday we wrote about online election adverts from the Conservatives which claim “small boat crossings are coming down” and that “small boats [are] down 36%”. We said the figure was correct for the number of people who had crossed in small boats in 2023 compared to the year before, but doesn’t reflect the rise in crossings so far this year.

As of 26 May the number of people arriving via small boats so far this year was up 38% compared to the same period last year.

The Conservatives have now responded to our request for more information, telling us: “Small boat crossings were down by over a third last year, showing our bold action to stop the boats is working. Given the impact of weather conditions on small boats crossings, it is important to compare annual data rather than shorter periods which are often impacted by seasonal conditions.”

This morning Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer addressed voters in West Sussex for his first keynote speech of the 2024 general election campaign, and took questions from the media afterwards. We’ve looked at several claims he made. 

Mr Starmer twice mentioned the amount spent on the government’s Rwanda policy, claiming that “it’s cost £600 million” and that the “Prime Minister has spent £600 million”. But part of this figure appears to refer to future costs, rather than the amount that has already been spent. 

A National Audit Office (NAO) report published in March found the Home Office will pay £370 million to the Rwandan government with a further £20,000 for every individual who is relocated and £120 million once 300 people have been relocated, as well as further processing and operational costs. 

Analysis of the NAO report by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford estimated the total cost of relocating 500 people to Rwanda would be £625 million.

This does not include the possible financial implications for other government departments, or wider costs such as expanding detention facilities necessary to hold people before they are relocated.

We’ve contacted both Labour and the government about the £600 million figure and will update this blog if we receive a response. 

Mr Starmer also claimed in his speech that “chaos” under the Conservatives was “hitting every working family to the tune of £5,000”. 

It’s not clear where this £5,000 figure comes from—we’ve asked Labour.

We did see that figure referenced in a different way in a speech in March by shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves. She cited an estimate that the UK economy would have been £140 billion larger had it grown over the past decade in line with the average across the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), and said this would have been equivalent to £5,000 per household.

If so, people being £5,000 worse off compared to a hypothetical scenario is not the same as people actually losing £5,000 in real terms, and it’s worth noting Mr Starmer’s claim was also about working families rather than households. So the figure may come from somewhere else entirely—we’ll update this blog if Labour comes back to us with more information. 

Mr Starmer also repeated a claim we’ve heard many times before—that the UK army is the smallest it has been since the Napoleonic Wars. 

As we’ve written in our explainer on the size of the UK’s armed forces, the present number of personnel in the British Army is comparable to the period shortly after the Napoleonic wars. That said, the data that far back is not entirely reliable and there are many different ways of counting serving personnel.

Finally, another claim made by Mr Stamer was that taxes are "higher than at any time since the war". We’ve seen versions of this claim a lot recently from Labour politicians, including shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves earlier this month and shadow education minister Bridget Phillipson on the BBC’s Today programme this morning [2:28:20].

While the so-called “tax burden”—which refers to tax revenues as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP)— was at the highest level in over 70 years in 2022/23, it fell slightly in 2023/24. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has forecast that it will rise to near-record levels over the next five years.