16 June 2016 Comment

Live factchecking Michael Gove's BBC Question Time special

By Amy Hawkins • 2 mins

There is just one week to go until voters decide whether or not the UK should remain in or leave the EU. The campaigns on either side of the debate are rolling out the heavyweights to try and win people over.

Last night, we live factchecked Michael Gove's BBC Question Time special, in which he made the case for leaving the EU. On Sunday, we'll be doing the same for David Cameron, as he argues the case for remaining. Here's what you might have missed.

Economic forecasts about Brexit

The discussion got started with George Osborne's Brexit budget and economic forecasts. We've written about the ten things you need to know  about economic models here, and why the forecasts differ here. 

Join 74,000 newsletter subscribers who trust us to check the facts

Sign up to get weekly updates on politics, immigration, health and more.

Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more. Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy.

EU economic growth

Mr Gove's next claim caught our eye: "The EU has the lowest growth of any continent in the world, apart from Antarctica"

Boris Johnson also made this claim recently. Here's our video factcheck. 

What the IFS said about the cost of leaving the EU

David Dimbleby put a question to Michael Gove about the IFS saying there would be a hole of £30bn a year immediately after Brexit.

Mr Gove responded: "they didn't say there would be a cut like that immediately after Brexit".

Here's what the IFS actually said:

What the IFS said about money for the NHS, if we left the EU

Mr Gove said, "I believe that if we vote to leave we can give the NHS £100m additional every week." Here's our response:

UK economic growth

Mr Gove claimed that "Britain is the world's fifth largest economy". It could also be counted as the world's ninth biggest, depending on which measure you use.

The UK's EU membership fee

The UK's EU membership fee came up. Mr Gove said, "Overall, we hand over to the European Union, every year, £20 billion".

We were prepared for this:

Is Turkey joining the EU?

There was a lot of discussion about whether or not Turkey will be joining the EU. Mr Gove said,"[Turkey joining the EU] is the policy of our government...The government has no intention of using that veto".

We said:

And finally, immigration. Mr Gove said that the UK could introduce an Australian-style points system for immigration.

Immigration and border control

ERROR: YourNewsTv's tweets are protected, they can't be embedded.

And that's all from us — see you on Sunday

Isn't nice to have the facts? Help us factcheck more and reach more people by making a donation.

 

Live factchecking the #ITVEUref debate

Live factchecking David Cameron's BBC Question Time special