Tuesday, February 08, 2022
Prime Minister misleads the House of Commons again
Hot on the heels of giving out incorreect crime statistics in the House of Commons and launching an unfounded slur against the Leader of the Opposition, Boris Johnson has once more been caught out misleading the House of Commons, this time on employment figures.
The BBC reports that Ed Humpherson, from the Office for Statistics Regulation, has sent one of the prime minister's advisers at Downing Street a letter saying it was "incorrect to state {as Johnson did at Prime Minister's Question Time} that there were more people in work at the end of this period than the start":
Responding to a complaint from the fact-checking organisation Full Fact, Mr Humpherson had told No 10 this claim had been made by the prime minister in Parliament on 24 November, 15 December, 5 January, 12 January and 19 January.
And it was "disappointing" the prime minister had "continued to refer to payroll employment as if describing total employment, despite contact from our office and from others".
The problem is Mr Johnson has been mixing up the number of people on payrolls, which has gone up with the number of people in work, which has not.
They are not the same thing - the payroll number excludes self-employed people, for example.
In fact, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates 32.5 million over-16s were in work between September and November 2021 - about 600,000 fewer than in the last three-month period before the pandemic, December 2019 to February 2020.
But the number of people on payrolls, in December 2021, was 29.5 million, which is just over 400,000 more than in February 2020.
It is a fine distinction, but an important one, as it shows the significant impact of the pandemic on the self-employed. Surely, the Prime Minister should be earning his Rt. Hon title by being more scrupulous in what he tells MPs in the House of Commons.
The BBC reports that Ed Humpherson, from the Office for Statistics Regulation, has sent one of the prime minister's advisers at Downing Street a letter saying it was "incorrect to state {as Johnson did at Prime Minister's Question Time} that there were more people in work at the end of this period than the start":
Responding to a complaint from the fact-checking organisation Full Fact, Mr Humpherson had told No 10 this claim had been made by the prime minister in Parliament on 24 November, 15 December, 5 January, 12 January and 19 January.
And it was "disappointing" the prime minister had "continued to refer to payroll employment as if describing total employment, despite contact from our office and from others".
The problem is Mr Johnson has been mixing up the number of people on payrolls, which has gone up with the number of people in work, which has not.
They are not the same thing - the payroll number excludes self-employed people, for example.
In fact, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates 32.5 million over-16s were in work between September and November 2021 - about 600,000 fewer than in the last three-month period before the pandemic, December 2019 to February 2020.
But the number of people on payrolls, in December 2021, was 29.5 million, which is just over 400,000 more than in February 2020.
It is a fine distinction, but an important one, as it shows the significant impact of the pandemic on the self-employed. Surely, the Prime Minister should be earning his Rt. Hon title by being more scrupulous in what he tells MPs in the House of Commons.
