Rishi Sunak has been rebuked by the UK’s statistics watchdog over his claims to have reduced public debt.
The prime minister said that “debt is falling” in a social media video and told the Commons that “we have indeed reduced debt” at PMQs last month.
But the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) Sir Robert Chote has suggested Mr Sunak’s claims, part of his five key pledges, were misleading.
He said the average person “would likely have assumed that he was claiming that debt was already falling or that the government’s policy decisions had lowered it at the fiscal events – neither of which is the case”.
And in a stern warning, Sir Robert said: “This has clearly been a source of confusion and may have undermined trust in the government’s use of statistics and quantitative analysis in this area.”
In a letter to Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney, the stats watchdog chief said No 10 told the UKSA that Mr Sunak’s claims referred to forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
The claims involved looking at the underlying measure of net debt would be falling as a proportion of GDP in the final year of its five-year forecast – meaning 2028-29 at the time of the November autumn statement.
This was primarily due to happen because of changes to the OBR’s underlying economic and fiscal projections, even as government decisions on tax and spending pushed debt higher in cash terms.
Rishi Sunak told off in letter by stats watchdog chief
But Sir Robert said that this is not how the “average person in the street” would interpret Mr Sunak’s statements.
“Members of the public cannot be expected to understand the minutiae of public finance statistics and the precise combination of definitional choices that might need to be made for a particular claim to be true,” he wrote.
The Office for Statistics Regulation, the UKSA’s regulatory arm, “will work with the prime minister’s office to ensure further statements on debt levels adhere to our guidance on intelligent transparency,” Sir Robert said.
Ministers should “ask themselves how someone with an interest but little specialist knowledge is likely to interpret a particular claim and to explain themselves clearly if they choose to depart significantly from that in definitional terms,” he wrote.
Reducing debt is one of Mr Sunak’s five pledges, alongside halving inflation, growing the economy, cutting NHS waiting times and stopping small boat crossings.
Ms Olney had written to the UK’s official statistics watchdog to raise her concerns about Mr Sunak’s remarks.
Following Sir Robert’s reply, the Lib Dem MP said Mr Sunak “knows he has no good story to tell on the UK economy so he has resorted to making one up”.
“Instead, he has reached for the Boris Johnson playbook and is undermining trust in politics. This is desperate stuff from a desperate prime minister, and it is right that he has been called out on it.”
She added: “Rather than using smoke and mirrors to cover up his own failings, Rishi Sunak needs to come forward with a real strategy to rebuild the economy after the Conservative party crashed it.”
