Fact-checking Liz Truss at PMQs
- Published
Liz Truss apologised and admitted to having "made mistakes" as she faced MPs at Prime Minister's Questions. It follows weeks of turmoil on the markets after her government's mini-budget and the subsequent U-turns over most of its key measures.
The prime minister defended her record though, making claims about government support on energy bills, the economy and the NHS.
We've examined them.
'We put in place the Energy Price Guarantee, to make sure the typical household isn't paying more than £2,500'
Ms Truss has used this figure repeatedly since announcing the Energy Price Guarantee, but the duration of this support scheme has now been scaled back meaning the figure is no longer certain.
When it was announced on 8 September, external, there was a cap on the price of a unit of energy until 2024.
A government press release on this date said: "From 1st October, a new 'Energy Price Guarantee' will mean a typical UK household will now pay up to an average £2,500 a year on their energy bill for the next two years."
But on 17 October, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the scheme would be scaled back, to six months (with a review to decide what support to offer after that).
The cap will now only cover prices up to April 2023 and, at the moment, we do not know how much people will be paying per unit of energy after that.
So the government needs a new calculation for typical bills. Until they come up with one, they can't say with any certainty that the typical household won't be paying more than £2,500.
'The health secretary has set out a very clear plan of how we're going to deal with the backlog created by Covid'
Therese Coffey has announced a plan for patients, external, with measures on backlogs and waiting times.
But the pandemic didn't create the NHS backlog, it already existed. Covid-19 made it worse.
As of August 2022, the NHS backlog - the number of people waiting for NHS treatment in England - stood at around seven million.
According to the British Medical Association, "demand for hospital treatment was outstripping capacity even before the pandemic".
Its figures , externalshow that just before the pandemic in February 2020, the NHS backlog already stood at 4.43 million people.
NHS rules, external state that patients needing non-urgent treatment should not wait any longer than 18 weeks to be seen by a healthcare professional.
Prior to the pandemic, figures, external show that 17% of people were waiting longer than this time, compared with 36% of people in December 2021.
'Interest rates are rising across the world and the economic conditions have worsened'
The prime minister said this after being accused by Labour of "crashing the economy" and causing people's monthly mortgage payments to go up by hundreds of pounds.
But she didn't mention the mini-budget.
Interest rates have been rising around the world and there are gloomy forecasts about the world economy from organisations such as the International Monetary Fund.
But her government's mini-budget of 23 September - with its £45bn of unfunded tax cuts - also had a significant impact on the UK.
In a letter on Tuesday, external, Bank of England deputy governor Jon Cunliffe said: "there has been a particular increase in volatility in UK markets" and pointed out that: "the five largest daily moves in the 30 year inflation-linked gilt, in data that dates back to 2000, have all been since the 23 September".
You can see that in this chart of borrowing costs for G7 countries. It shows the increases in government borrowing costs since 1 September, the spike after the 'fiscal event' or mini-budget and the cost coming back down as measures were reversed.
These borrowing costs have fed into things like higher mortgage rates for homebuyers and had an adverse impact on the pensions sector which forced the Bank of England to step in with a £65bn support scheme.
We've looked in more detail at how far the mini-budget caused the ensuing market chaos in this piece.
