FactCheck: pre-budget report
Updated on 24 November 2008
Chancellor Alistair Darling announces a historic financial package - but do his facts stack up?
The claim
"We saw the longest period of continuous growth in the history of this country."
Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, pre-budget report speech, 24 November 2008
The analysis
It almost seems churlish to pull them up on it, given that the UK economy has now fallen from the heights of growth to shrink for the first time since 1992. But this being FactCheck, and Fact-checking being what we do, we have to beg to differ with the chancellor's assessment.
It's true on one measure - quarterly growth figures, which stretch back as far as 1955. But annual growth figures go back far further and show a far longer period of growth - a quarter-century's worth, lasting from the end of the second world war to the first oil shock of the seventies.
The UK economy would need to grow for almost another decade for the claim to be true, and that's assuming that the current downturn pulls around in time to keep showing overall annual growth - something even the government admitted today was unlikely for 2009.
Either way, the claim's not true today.
The claim
"Even today, employment remains near record highs."
Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, pre-budget report speech, 24 November 2008
The analysis
Record highs by number, but not by percentage - arguably the more useful measure for historical comparison.
There are more people in work nowadays than at any time in history - no mean feat in a time of rising population. But that rising population means the 29.41 million people in work today gives an official employment rate of 74.4 per cent - not dissimilar to the 74.6 per cent back when comparable records began in 1971.
The sources
ONS: Labour market statistics
FactCheck: early nineties economy
The claim
"The claimant count, while rising, is two million below the level of the early 1990s."
Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, pre-budget report speech, 24 November 2008
The analysis
The claimant count - the number of people claiming unemployment benefit - is one of the more generous measures of unemployment, as it counts only those who want to, and are eligible to, sign on. As of October 2008, it stands at 980,900 - its highest since March 2001.
Still, this is close enough to two million fewer than the 2,9603,000 peak in December 1992. Or is it?
A generous measure it may be, but the claimant count is not usually used for historical comparisons as the number of people claiming is affected by the changes in the benefit rules over time.
This doesn't make it wrong, but it's something to be wary of, too. We'll be watching this line of claim closely in the future.
The sources
ONS: Labour market statistics
The claim
"Government debt last year was among the lowest in the major advanced economies."
Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, pre-budget report speech, 24 November 2008
The analysis
Depends who you include in the advanced country club. Last year the UK had the lowest national debt in the G7 apart from Canada - but if the measure is broadened out to the 30-strong OECD countries, the picture is far less rosy.
Last year Britain had the eleventh highest debt of the 28 countries for which the OECD had data, in contrast to the likes of Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, all of which are in credit rather than in debt.
The sources
Institute for Fiscal Studies: the UK public finance - ready for recession?
