{"id":28165,"date":"2023-02-23T19:10:24","date_gmt":"2023-02-23T19:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fusefornews.com\/2023\/02\/23\/keir-starmers-five-missions-speech-fact-checked\/"},"modified":"2023-02-23T19:10:24","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T19:10:24","slug":"keir-starmers-five-missions-speech-fact-checked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fusefornews.com\/?p=28165","title":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer’s five missions speech fact-checked"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Keir<\/picture><\/span>Image source, <\/span>Reuters<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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By Reality Check team<\/p>\n

BBC News<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Labour leader Keir Starmer set out his five missions for government on Thursday.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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We’ve been looking at some of the claims made in his speech.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

‘If growth over the last 13 years had been as strong as under the last Labour government, we would have \u00a340bn extra to spend’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Growth has certainly been slower in the last 13 years than it was in the previous 13 years, when the Labour Party was in power.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Between 1997 and 2010, the economy grew at an average of just under 2% a year. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Labour’s argument is that, had growth kept going at that rate (instead of at just below 1.5% a year) the economy would be bigger and the government would take more in taxes. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Using that method you can come out with that overall figure of about an extra \u00a340bn in the tax take.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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So, it is correct to say that had the economy kept growing at the rate seen before 2010, the government could have tens of billions more to spend now. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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However, whether all of the differences in growth rates seen over the last 26 years are down to the decision of the governments of the time is a more contentious question. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The sluggish growth seen during the 2010s was not a problem unique to the UK, for example, and all economies faced challenges due to Covid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

‘The worst decade for growth in two centuries’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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UK economic growth was indeed very poor between 2010 and 2019, with total growth of just over 20%.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But that wasn’t as bad as the decade around World War One, for example. Between 1917 and 1926 the economy contracted by almost 10%.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It wasn’t looking at all decades, but at the 10 years after a recession. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It found that the period 2009-2019 had been similar to the decade after 1921, but worse than all other recovery periods since 1808.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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However, that’s not the same as it being the worst decade of growth in two centuries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

‘Zero-carbon British electricity by 2030… will put us ahead of any major economy in the world’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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It means Labour is taking a more challenging target than the Conservatives. Boris Johnson announced<\/a> when he was prime minister in October 2021 that UK electricity would come from clean sources by 2035.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Sir Keir is right that no other major economy is matching the 2030 target. The G7 group of big economies, for example, has pledged to “predominantly” decarbonise electricity by 2035.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

‘These missions… will be measurable, so we can track progress and be held to account’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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While the Labour leader repeatedly said that each of the five missions would have measurable targets, we have not yet been given any of those targets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Even the missions that sound like they are easily measurable are more complicated than they look.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For example, the first mission is to have “the highest sustained growth in the G7”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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We know how to measure which economy has the highest growth, but Labour has declined to tell us yet how they will assess which economy has the highest sustained growth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And measuring whether a Labour government manages to “break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage” will also be tricky.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But Labour has said it will announce the metrics in the future, so we will have to wait and see. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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