Hannah Smith

Economy, Business & Finance

Living standards are still forecast to rise following the Budget—but it’s a smaller rise than was expected before

By Hannah Smith • 2 mins

Shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt claimed Labour’s Budget was going to mean “lower living standards”. Read

Economy, Business & Finance

Is Labour right to claim there’s a £22 billion ‘black hole’ in the public finances?

By Hannah Smith • 8 mins

It’s been a key government claim since the election and featured heavily in the Budget - but what does it actually mean? Read

Immigration

PM’s conference speech claim about ‘23% increase’ in immigration returns based on unpublished data

By Hannah Smith • 3 mins

Sir Keir Starmer claimed there’d been a “23% increase” in returns compared to last summer. But the data this is based on hasn’t been published, so we’re unable to verify it. Read

Inaccurate comparison of benefit fraud and tax losses recirculates on social media

By Hannah Smith • 4 mins

It’s not true that 360 times more money is lost to tax evasion than benefit fraud, as posts on social media have claimed. Read

Economy, Business & Finance

‘Basic state pension’ is not set to increase by ‘£400 or more’ over the next year

By Hannah Smith • 2 mins

Labour minister Pat McFadden made this claim during a radio interview, but may have been referring to the expected increase in the new state pension instead. Read

Education

Are student loan repayments really ‘the cost of a pint of beer’?

By Hannah Smith • 4 mins

We’ve crunched the numbers after a claim on the Today programme from former Labour cabinet minister Alan Johnson. Read

Economy, Business & Finance

No evidence the government plans to ‘means test’ the state pension

By Hannah Smith • 3 mins

Posts shared thousands of times on social media claim the PM is going to “means test” pensions. But there’s no evidence this is true and the government has said there are no plans to change state pens Read

Economy, Business & Finance

Will state pension increases offset the impact of Winter Fuel Payment changes?

By Hannah Smith • 4 mins

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer claimed that the state pension ‘will increase by more than any loss of the Winter Fuel Payment’. Read

Economy, Business & Finance

Has the government ‘scrapped’ cost of living support for pensioners?

By Hannah Smith • 3 mins

Rishi Sunak claimed Labour has ‘scrapped’ cost of living support for pensioners, and the Winter Fuel Payment. We've had a look at what’s happened to various pensioner cost of living support measures. Read

Prime Minister’s Questions fact checked: 4 September 2024

By Nasim Asl, Tony Thompson and Hannah Smith • 5 mins

We’ve examined claims from this week’s PMQs about the state of the public finances, support for pensioners, economic growth and more. Read