FactCheck: Prime Minister's Questions 10 Jan 2007

Analysis

Just a day after the Association of Chief Police Officers dropped a bombshell to the home affairs select committee that the details of more than 500 Britons convicted of serious crimes abroad were languishing in box files, un-entered in the police national computer, the home office was the logical target for Tories hoping to make political hay.

David Cameron posed question after question on the topic. He asked both whether the details of the offenders has now been entered on the police national computer and, where relevant, the sex offenders' register and for a guarantee that none of these offenders had been working with vulnerable adults or children.

Blair would say only that that "every one of the offenders identified on which there is sufficient detail" has now been entered on the system. So how many is that? MPs had to wait until straight after PMQs for an answer, when the home secretary, John Reid, told MPs that 260 of the serious offenders had been put onto the police database, leaving around 280 still to be admitted.

Is the picture painted by Cameron of a Britain with unknown convicted criminals working with vulnerable people the case, or just scaremongering? For that, we'll have to wait for the Government receives further information from the Criminal Records Bureau. This should happen in a matter of days.

Source
Commons clash over foreign crimes, BBC news, 10 January 2007

Analysis

Health secretary Patricia Hewitt's infamous boast, in April 2006, that the NHS was enjoying its best year ever drew jeers at a time when many NHS trusts were in the red. But there are many different ways to take the temperature of such a complex organisation as the NHS.

Local cutbacks in health services - which have drawn even the usually on-message party chair Hazel Blears to the picket line - are an emotive issue for those directly affected. However, the Government says they are necessary to modernise the health service and provide care in larger specialist centres.

Although there were some frontline job cuts in 2006, as FactCheck found out in the autumn, the number was smaller than that commonly suggested by the Tories. It's also worth pointing out that, however you do the maths, the numbers of doctors and nurses in the NHS has increased drastically under Labour.

Sources
FactCheck: Is this the 'best year ever' for the NHS?
FactCheck: Is the NHS cutting 20,000 jobs?

Ah, waiting lists - an easy target for any politician wishing to paint a picture of a health service either in crisis or blossoming. Blair jumped to the NHS's defence with a claim that almost sounds too good to be true - despite advances in modern medical technology and the types of treatments available to patients, can those waiting for them really be at an all-time low?

Well, yes and no. The official figures published on 5 January did indeed seem to show NHS waiting lists at a record low. Not bad, although as these records have only been around since September 1987, this feat isn't quite as impressive as might be expected - we're talking about a just-under-two-decade period than since, well, centuries.

There's another factor to consider as well - "hidden waiting lists", something which even health minister Andy Burnham mentioned as an area for action in the congratulatory press release accompanying the figures.

During the 2005 election, FactCheck examined how official figures might not be all they seem. Specifically, they don't reflect the time between seeing the GP and being diagnosed for specialist treatment - something the Government aims to tackle by 2008.

Sources
NHS inpatient and outpatient waiting times figures - November 2006
Department of Health: New Year signals shorter waiting lists for patients, 5 January 2007
FactCheck: Hide and Seek. The real story on hidden waiting lists

Analysis

In answering a question by the Labour MP for Hendon, Andrew Dismore - on why his Conservative-controlled local authority is not issuing enough Asbos - Blair claimed that the fact that half of ASBOs are breached could still be seen as a policy achievement.

Is this over-optimistic Government spin, or just a case of whether you think the Asbo-glass being half empty or half full?

The report issued by the National Audit Office last month found that "just over half of our sample cases breached their Anti-Social Behaviour Order, with a third of this group doing so on five or more occasions".

Which doesn't sound too good.

The report noted, however, that a breach may not necessarily be as bad as it sounds - for example, it could just mean "entering a prohibited area, rather than committing further antisocial behaviour". Blair's closing comment, urged those wanting Asbo powers to be used by local authorities to vote Labour - although, with the NAO putting the cost of responding to reports of anti-social behaviour at £3.4bn per year, this could be a costly option.

Source
The Home Office: Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour, 7 December 2006

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