At a time when we are facing an economic crisis, when people are scared that they can’t afford to feed their families or heat their homes this winter, it’s not enough to simply say honesty matters. We must now take action to build a more honest political system.
Following weeks of unprecedented political changes and u-turns, on Monday, Liz Truss told the BBC that owning up to a mistake is “the mark of an honest politician”.
This may seem like too much too late for some. In today’s politics, words rarely match actions, which is why it’s no surprise that according to research by Full Fact, 71% of Britons believe there was more lying and misuse of facts in politics than 30 years ago.
Trust in our democracy is being eroded inside Parliament, and unfortunately, this isn’t a new problem. For instance, when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, he repeatedly made the same false claim about his government’s performance on increasing employment, ignoring organisations including the UK Statistics Authority, Office for Statistics Regulation and Full Fact’s own attempts to encourage him to correct the record.
These are just a few examples of the cynicism and distrust that is fueling our politics. A cross-party group of MPs – the Liaison Committee – eventually challenged Boris Johnson, leading him to admit that he was wrong about the claims he made about unemployment. MPs also launched an inquiry into corrections systems because they recognized that it is not suitable for purpose.
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As it stands now, if your are not a Minister of Government, you cannot correct the official records. This means that any misleading claims made in Parliament remain online and can be found by anyone. This approach is not honest and does not build trust in politics.
This is a problem that has a solution. At today’s Procedure Committee, Full Fact will be giving evidence to highlight how a simple system could work. The inquiry, initially announced in June this year, is recognition by cross-party MPs that changes must be made to Parliament’s corrections system. If MPs agree that the system should be changed, this will be the first step towards honest politics in Parliament.
One of the topics we will discuss is the Scottish Parliament’s ability to allow corrections to the record by all MSPs since 2010. We’re not asking for much. For example, allowing the Official Opposition the ability to correct their mistakes in a similar way that Government Ministers can would reduce the political point scoring and improve the perception of politics and MPs among their constituents.
Bad information does not just exist in Parliament. Our current Prime Minister, Liz Truss, recently helped to spread the notion that there was a £2,500 energy bill price cap by repeating the claim across several regional BBC Radio interviews. It’s not unimaginable that this was an accidental error, but bad information has a real life impact. Many believed that their energy bills would be capped this winter, and a Full Fact investigation has identified more than 100 potentially misleading claims about the Energy Price Guarantee—from 25 different politicians and media outlets—creating confusion as to whether their total bills would be capped, rather than the unit price of their energy, which was actually the case.
At a time when we are facing an economic crisis, when people are scared that they can’t afford to feed their families or heat their homes this winter, it’s not enough to simply say honesty matters. We must now take action to build a more honest political system.
Mistakes happen. We all make mistakes. Full Fact has never wished for a world where there were no mistakes and certainly not one in which admitting to them was considered a negative.
Recently, we fact-checked Labour MP Ian Lavery’s email. made an incorrect claimConcerning the pay hikes for nurses in the NHS. This was due to a mistake made by the Royal College of Nursing general secret. Although we don’t believe Ian Lavery MP intended mislead Parliament at all, there is currently no way for him make a correction to the official records.
It’s in the interests of our MPs to be able to easily correct the record. It is essential to rebuild trust in politics. Voters will be grateful for this because they know that mistakes happen. It’s failing to correct those mistakes that can be costly.
That’s why Full Fact is campaigning alongside over 34,000 people who want to see renewed a commitment to honest politics in our Parliament. And while we make the case to the inquiry today, we hope you’ll also take the time to join our call for change by signing our petition.
Glen Tarman Head of Policy and Advocacy. Full Fact
