This round-up of claims has been compiled by Full Fact, the UK’s independent fact-checking charity which works to give people access to reliable information they can trust.
Over-70s won’t be ordered to retake driving tests under new plans
Posts on Facebook have been claiming that new Prime Minister Andy Burnham is proposing to make over-70s pass another driving test to continue driving on UK roads.
One post, liked more than 1,800 times, says: “What have I and my fellow pensioners done to upset our new Prime Minister… Today he is talking of all drivers over 70 taking a new driving test.”
But this is not a genuine policy being brought forward by Mr Burnham.
The proposed re-testing actually relates to plans for drivers over 70 to have their vision checked every three years in order to stay on the roads. And this is not a policy newly announced by Mr Burnham, but one which has been discussed since August 2025 as part of a new road safety strategy.
It went out to public consultation between January and May this year—during Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.
Under existing rules, the automatic entitlement to drive expires at the age of 70, and drivers must then renew their licence every three years, with a self-declaration that they can meet eyesight standards required to drive, and confirm whether they have any listed medical conditions.
The new proposals would see the self-declaration process replaced with mandatory eyesight tests for older drivers as part of the licence renewal process.
How many prison places did the Conservatives create?
Earlier this summer, Andy Burnham said that “Britain’s prisons crisis has its roots in a failure to add sufficient new places between 2010 and 2024. Just 500 places were added and 23 prisons were closed.”
But last month, Kemi Badenoch claimed: “When we were in Government, we saw the challenge. We created 14,000 new prison places, it was nowhere near enough.”
So who’s correct?
Mr Burnham appears to have been referencing figures published in an ad-hoc release by the Ministry of Justice in October 2024.
These figures showed that the net increase in prison places in England and Wales between May 2010 and April 2024 – the month the Conservatives entered government and the last full month before the 2024 general election was called – was 482.
The 14,000 figure Mrs Badenoch used also matches figures in the same ad-hoc release, which showed that a total of 14,142 new prison places were created over the same period.
We asked the Conservatives if this is what she was referring to but they did not respond. This figure does not account for the reduction in prison places through closures and other reasons over the same period.
The 482 figure represents these newly created prison places, minus 11,651 prison places that were closed over the same period because of either prison closures or cell dilapidation, and a 2,009 decrease in capacity for other reasons.
Smear test brushes are safe
We’ve seen claims circulating online that the brush used in cervical smear tests is sterilised in a “cancer-causing” chemical called ethylene oxide.
Ethylene oxide is a gas that is commonly used to sterilise all sorts of medical devices, including swabs and speculums. Although overexposure can be dangerous, there is no credible evidence it endangers patients who come into contact with sterilised medical devices.
Posts sharing the claim that the chemical used to sterilise swabs used in cervical smears is “cancer-causing” and implying that it is therefore dangerous to have a smear test have been shared hundreds of times across Facebook, Instagram and X.
It is true that ethylene oxide can be carcinogenic or cause other health issues at certain levels of exposure, such as lung damage in severe cases of inhalation, but medical devices sterilised with it are not unsafe.
A spokesperson for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) told us “there is no credible evidence that the swabs used in cervical smear tests are associated with cancer”.
Negative health effects would involve higher, prolonged levels of exposure.
Professor Andrea Sella, professor of inorganic chemistry at University College London, also previously told us that the “sterilisation process involves exposing a material to ethylene oxide for a few seconds or minutes, and then removing the gas entirely before the now sterile item is packaged”.
He said: “There is nothing left of the ethylene oxide once it is packaged, and there is no conceivable harm that can come from using an item sterilised in this way.”
False, misleading or unevidenced health claims can cause harm if people make treatment decisions based on them. Trustworthy information can be found from sources such as the NHS and the World Health Organisation.
