Boris Johnson's leaving speech fact-checked
- Published
In his last speech as prime minister, Boris Johnson said his government was delivering on its "huge manifesto commitments".
He made a series of claims - about its record on police, nurses, hospitals and, of course, Brexit. We've examined some of them.
'Three new high-speed rail lines'
The government promised to build two major rail projects, High Speed 2 (HS2) and Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR).
We asked the Department for Transport (DfT) about the third new high-speed rail line Mr Johnson referred to. It pointed us to a rail plan from November 2021, external which counts the long-planned eastern and western legs of HS2 as two separate new lines.
In that same announcement, the government cancelled most of the eastern section so it only ran from Birmingham to East Midlands Parkway instead of all the way to Leeds.
On NPR, while some had anticipated a wholly new high-speed rail line, the government's Integrated Rail Plan said it would only include 40 miles of new high-speed line between Warrington and Yorkshire.
There won't be a whole new line all the way to Leeds - most of the project will consist of upgrades
Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, told the BBC: "HS2 East and Western Leg was always one line. Having cancelled most of the Eastern Leg and claiming that as a line - as it no longer serves Sheffield or Leeds - is spurious by any definition.
"Northern Powerhouse Rail has been reduced to a new line only as far as Marsden, and excludes Bradford entirely, and as the line was never high speed and parts of the upgrades, including to Hull were cancelled, to refer to this the way the PM did was misleading."
The DfT says the government has set aside £100m to look into ways of running HS2 trains to Leeds and will upgrade the Leeds-Bradford Calder Valley rail line.
'13,790 more police on the streets'
The government promised 20,000 more police for England and Wales by March 2023.
The latest figures, up to 30 June 2022, do show an extra 13,790 police officers have been recruited, external under the government's Police Uplift scheme.
But that doesn't make up for police numbers falling by 20,545 between March 2010 and March 2019, external - under Conservative-led governments.
'Neighbourhood crime down by 38% in three years'
This figure is correct - according to survey data from the Office for National Statistics - but it doesn't cover all types of crime people might experience in their neighbourhoods.
The Home Office's Beating Crime plan, external defines neighbourhood crime as "vehicle-related theft, domestic burglary, theft from the person and robbery of personal property".
But it excludes crimes like arson and theft from outside the house (both up since June 2019 when Mr Johnson came to office) as well as bike theft and violent crime (which have both fallen).
It also excludes fraud which has risen by almost 30% in the same period. Fraud accounts for nearly half the crime estimated to take place in England and Wales.
Mr Johnson was criticised earlier in the year by the statistics regulator for claiming that crime had fallen (which was only true if you excluded fraud).
'50,000 nurses by the end of this Parliament'
This refers to a manifesto commitment to achieve these numbers in England by 2025.
The latest figures show 319,846 full-time equivalent NHS nurses and health visitors in May 2022, external. That is up 23,753 since December 2019.
So, there are still 26,247 posts to fill.
But another government pledge - to recruit 6,000 more GPs by 2025 - wasn't mentioned by Mr Johnson.
Progress on this pledge is much slower. There were 35,257 full-time equivalent GPs in post in July 2022. That's up by just 738 since the end of December 2019.
'40 new hospitals by the end of the decade'
While many people would assume this means brand new hospitals, the government's definition is different.
Its description of "new hospital" includes new wings of existing hospitals, as well as refurbished hospitals.
In December 2021, analysis done by Reality Check and the Nuffield Trust found that of the 40 projects in England :
three were entirely new hospitals
three involved rebuilding non-urgent care hospitals
12 were new wings within existing hospitals
22 were rebuilding projects
When asked for an update, on 6 September, a Department of Health spokesperson told us that one of the 40 hospitals opened for patients last year and a further six were under construction.
'Got Brexit done'
This is a claim Mr Johnson has made many times and, in a literal sense, the UK did leave the EU on 31 January 2020.
But if it was intended to mean Brexit was done and dusted, this has clearly not happened.
A huge amount remains unresolved, from Northern Ireland to financial services.
A large number of trade deals have been signed around the world (the majority of which simply replace the ones the UK already had as an EU member) but a deal with the US hasn't happened.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which makes economic judgements for the government, predicts that leaving the EU will reduce the UK's imports and exports by about 15% in the long term, with about a 4% hit to productivity.
Supporters of Brexit say sovereignty has been restored, and unwanted regulations can now be cut.
'Fastest vaccine rollout in Europe'
The UK was the first country to approve a Covid vaccine - on 2 December 2020.
Its vaccine rollout began on 8 December 2020 - weeks before the EU's.
The UK vaccine programme was the fastest in the EU until May 2021.
After that, other EU countries caught up if you look at doses per 100 people in a country's population.
'Reforming social care'
Boris Johnson pledged to "fix the crisis in social care once and for all" when he entered Downing Street in 2019.
In 2021, his government unveiled its plan to cap the costs that people in England pay for social care. From October 2023, this will be set at a maximum of £86,000 for care during their lifetime.
But this long-awaited reform of funding does not fix other problems in the sector - such as the shortage of care workers.
The latest figures, from July 2022, show that the number of vacancies are now 165,000, up 55,000 from 2020/21.
Research in May 2022 estimated that 500,000 adults in England were waiting for social care, up from 294,000 a year ago.
'Winning the biggest majority since 1987'
This is only true if you look at the biggest Conservative party majority since 1987 - which Mr Johnson's 80-seat majority in the 2019 election was.
But it's not if you look at other political parties. Labour, under Tony Blair, won a 179-seat majority at the 1997 election.
Johnson's Conservatives did win the highest share of the vote in the UK for any party since 1979 - 43.6%.
