RISHI Sunak and senior Tory ministers have been accused of repeatedly using misleading data “in pursuit of political advantage”.
In particular, a report has found that on multiple occasions, politicians used unpublished operational data on asylum issues, with a lack of transparency around where the figures had come from.
In the 12-page report Government Statistics: Misrepresentation and Data Gaps, fact checking charity Full Fact detailed the issues around the use of statistics by UK Government ministers over the past two years.
“We are fair enough to recognise that in some cases this is simply done in error, and is understandable in a one-off scenario,” the report reads.
“However, when this happens repeatedly, even after the error has been pointed out, then this appears to be being done in pursuit of political advantage.”
The fact checkers said the findings were “unacceptable” and put forward a number of recommendations for ministers.
The report set out how the use of data on a number of issues relating to asylum used by the Home Office were described as misleading.
In 2022, then-home secretary Priti Patel claimed that the majority of arrivals from France were Albanian nationals, alleged to be around 60%, but this was found to be incorrect as the Home Office had used “provisional operational data” that did not support the assertion.
A separate claim made by immigration minister Robert Jenrick (above) on the number of adult men arriving at an asylum processing centre allegedly claiming to be under 18, was also based on provisional data. The figures have still not been made public, and there are no figures available to back up Jenrick’s claim.
And, current Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s comparison of the asylum backlog now and under the previous Labour government were deemed to be misleading.
She had suggested the Labour Party will be “found wanting,” despite the backlog being much larger under the current UK Government. A further claim she made about the initial decision backlog reducing by 17,000 was found to be incorrect as the number had actually increased since Sunak outlined his five-point plan to tackle it in December 2022.
The PM also claimed that there were 6000 fewer people in the caseload of the asylum backlog in Parliament in March 2023, without any evidence to back it up.
While figures released by the Home Office since then on the “legacy backlog” have shown Sunak’s claim to be “broadly correct,” Full Fact points out the PM did not “specify that this was the backlog he was referring to”.
And, several claims made about housing asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm being more cost effective than in hotels also do not have any statistics to support this.
“Full Fact finds this pattern of ministers using statistics without publishing the source data to be highly problematic and particularly acute with the Home Office in relation to asylum and immigration policy,” the report reads.
Additionally, claims on the number of “ghost children”' by the Department of Education, those who left school during Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and never came back, have not been substantiated by fact checkers.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) was also criticised for misleading data about Russian sanctions. The department initially claimed that £258.8 billion in Russian assets were sanctioned, comparing this to amounts sanctioned by the US and EU.
“Upon investigation, Full Fact was not able to establish what the figures referred to, how they were calculated, or whether the information used was comparable,” the report said.
The fact checkers said they “were not able to establish whether the information that was being used to promote the UK’s response to the war in Ukraine was reliable”.
A further claim by the PM that there were 500 more dentists working in the NHS in 2023 than the year previously, was also found to be incorrect, as the figures related to an increase in 2021/22.
“In actual fact, the latest NHS data published since the Prime Minister made the claim shows that for 2022/23 there were 121 fewer dentists performing NHS activity than the year before,” the report added.
Chris Morris, chief executive at Full Fact, said, “When Rishi Sunak first came to power, he promised us 'integrity, accountability and professionalism at every level’.
“Instead, we have been left with a government where we have seen multiple instances of data use which fails to be transparent, or worse, appears to be misleading us. It’s unacceptable.
“Mistakes happen. But when these issues are raised time and time again, and nothing happens, we can only conclude that transparency, honesty and accountability is not a priority for this government.”
The charity called for the ministerial code to be strengthened to ensure ministers use data correctly, and the UK Government to be held to account and scrutinised more on any misuse of figures.
