I’ve written recently about the gross abuse of statistics by the DWP and by Grant Shapps on behalf of the government, which led to public rebukes by Andrew Dilnot, the Chair of the UK Statistics Authority.
This is not aberrant behaviour. The Tory party has a strong track record of statistical distortion and even outright lies. David Cameron lied to Parliament last year about new private sector jobs created under his government (an offence that used to lead to automatic resignation if discovered). Last week, he was at it again.
During PMQs on Wednesday, during a typically woeful and arrogant performance in which he barely referred to an opposition question let alone answer one, Cameron was challenged by a Labour MP on the massive increase in A&E waiting times. Here’s the exchange:
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab): Yet again we have no answers from the Prime Minister, who blames everyone but himself and denies that there is a crisis in A and E. Let me give him one more chance to try to give an answer. Why does he not admit what everyone in the health service knows—his £3 billion reorganisation has diverted attention and resourcesfrom patient care and he has betrayed his promises? May we now have an answer?
The Prime Minister: The abolition of the bureaucracy that this Government have brought about will put billions of pounds extra into the NHS, but the point that the hon. Gentleman has to take on is that this Government made a decision, which was not to cut the NHS. We are putting £12.7 billion extra into the NHS.
£12.7 billion extra into the NHS. David Cameron knows this to be untrue. He knows it because, like his ministers Iain (Duncan) Smith and Grant Shapps, he and his government were rebuked late last year for making similar false claims on NHS spending. Here’s how Sky News reported it:
he [Dilnot] said the UKSA‘s calculations were based on what he considered “the most authoritative source” of national statistics on the subject – the Treasury’s Public Spending Statistics publication.“On the basis of these figures, we would conclude that expenditure on the NHS in real terms was lower in 2011-12 than it was in 2009-10,” he said.Even the Telegraph, normally a tame Rottweiler for the Tories when it comes to the NHS, got saw the reality of the matter and got in on the act with this headline:
When the £12 billion claim first reared its head, it was challenged robustly by BBC Politics Show host Andrew Neil. Interviewed after his speech to the Conservative party conference last autumn, Jeremy Hunt tried to claim that the Tories had put this extra money into the NHS.
Neil, to his credit, shot back that this was “pure propaganda” – and revealed that the funding increase was £60 million – far less than matching inflation, and therefore a substantial real-terms decrease.
But the truth about NHS spending under this government doesn’t end there. A huge amount of the money that the coalition puts into the NHS simply goes in the front door and straight out the back. As I reported last year, in the 2011/12 fiscal year, the Treasury ‘clawed back’ no less than £1.4 billion from NHS funds, while siphoning off another £1.5bn for other uses – dwarfing the paltry increase in budgeted funds.
But it gets worse. The clawback for the 2012/13 year was even higher – at £2.2 billion.
The reality of the NHS funding situation is no secret, and is certainly not something that Cameron could claim to be in ignorance of or that it slipped his mind.
No matter which way you cut it, Cameron – knowingly – lied to the House and should resign immediately, were it not that such things are more likely to lead to promotion than to resignation under this government, as Jeremy Hunt’s case showed last year. Not only that, but he repeated a lie that he’s already been rebuked about and told not to repeat.
I have therefore written to Andrew Dilnot at the UKSA as follows (with a copy to Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham):
Dear Mr Dilnot,Can I ask you to do the same, to make sure that this issue receives the attention – and eventually the public rebuke – that it deserves? If you want to send your own complaint to the UKSA, the email address is authority.enquiries@statistics.gsi.gov.uk.
Last Wednesday (5 June), David Cameron claimed during Prime Minister’s Questions:“We are putting £12.7 billion extra into the NHS.”Looking at Treasury spending statistics, I see a nominal, but not real-terms, increase in NHS spending compared to the last year under the previous government, but certainly nothing like £12.7 billion. Since the Treasury routinely claws back well billions from the NHS – some £2.2 billion during 2012/13, up from £1.5bn in 2011/12 – Mr Cameron’s statement was a bald lie. He did not say that NHS budgets had increased, but that more was “put into” the NHS – which is not true when the Treasury is clawing back far more than the nominal increase.And even if this were not the case, budgets have not risen by £12.7 billion – or at all in real terms according to yourself late last year.Since you have been so good as to rebuke the government over false statistical claims on at least a couple of occasions this year, please would you take a look at this matter and do so again?See the following links for further information:I look forward to your response.Best regards,Steve WalkerThe SKWAWKBOX blog
Can I ask you to do the same, to make sure that this issue receives the attention – and eventually the public rebuke – that it deserves? If you want to send your own complaint to the UKSA, the email address is authority.enquiries@statistics.gsi.gov.uk.
You might want to copy it to your MP, too – a complaint from Sheila Gilmore MP to Andrew Dilnot led to the rebuke on ESA benefit lies, so some MPs do pay attention to such things and take action. If you want to find your MPs details, you can look them up very quickly at www.theyworkforyou.com.
Jump in and let’s turn up the heat on
