The claim that Zambia has 60% of the Southern African Development Community’s freshwater is completely false.

The post Zambia doesn’t hold 60% of southern Africa’s freshwater, but 4.5% appeared first on Africa Check.

“This judgment today has caused a great deal of concern. I think it’s quite significant for a number of reasons. But it’s not significant in that it will stop us from leaving the European Union”

Lisa Nandy MP, 3 November 2016

Ms Nandy is referring to the High Court judgment on Brexit handed down by the Lord Chief Justice yesterday. It’s correct that it’s significant, and it’s correct that it doesn’t directly stop us from leaving the European Union. Whether it might indirectly lead to Brexit happening differently or not at all is a separate question that depends on politics.

The case is clearly significant in terms of the legal issues at stake, with academics commentating on it even before it had finished. Often a single judge will hear a High Court case, but the Article 50 challenge was overseen by three of the most senior: the Lord Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls, and a judge from the Court of Appeal. They described the case of one of “general constitutional importance”.

The legal question for the court was whether the government can use its ‘prerogative powers’ to trigger Article 50 and start the process of leaving the EU.

The judges decided that UK constitutional law doesn’t allow that.

It follows that Parliament must pass a law in order to enact Article 50 and leave the EU, although the court didn’t spell this out.

Whether that law is likely to be passed is a matter of political judgement.

A draft law can be amended. That means MPs (and Lords) have the opportunity to give the government instructions. Parliament will now be much more involved in how Brexit plays out than it might have been, had the government been able to trigger Article 50 on its own.

The government has appealed the decision. Its appeal is likely to skip a step and go directly to the Supreme Court, where all 11 justices will hear it.

It's widely claimed that a bad diet leads to 70,000 premature deaths a year in the UK. But it's difficult to find a reliable source for this figure.

The post Wanted: evidence that a bad diet causes 70,000 premature deaths every year appeared first on Full Fact.

A special judicial report into the “capture” of South Africa’s state institutions has found that President Jacob Zuma is at the very least associated with corruption, if not just as deeply embedded in it as many South Africans believe.

He never seems to learn. After the scandal of his grandiose home improvements, his unsavoury association with the supremely wealthy Gupta family, and after his failed first effort to tar his finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, with dubious corruption charges, Zuma might be expected to be wary, to attempt circumspection – but he’s clearly determined not to back down, even as the political tide and South African civil society alike turn against him and his party.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation called for him to be removed from office. The opposition has been elected to take over the country’s great municipalities. Even the ANC chief whip called upon him to resign.

To add to the tawdriness, Zuma has now failed for a second time to get rid of Gordhan, whom he almost certainly regards as an obstacle to unfettered corruption. Gordhan is standing firm, which makes him a problem – although there are indications he could be hit with more corruption charges again soon.

Nevertheless, as far as Zuma’s concerned, it’s business as usual. He has come up with no solution or compromise for the increasingly furious student protests roiling the country’s campuses, no plans for expanding and improving healthcare, improving the delivery of public services, and no plan for ensuring electricity. He doesn’t seem to care if the value of the rand falls because of his machinations, which serve himself and his cronies above even the ANC, much less the nation.

Slow-motion collapse

And that’s precisely the point. Zuma goes on, and knows he can go on, because the ANC itself – no matter what people say about an internal struggle – has been captured by an elite cabal of corrupt people. They have firmly ensconced themselves at the top of a trickle-down structure of corruption and patronage, one that extends to the most remote parts of the ANC apparatus in South Africa’s outlying provinces. If you want a contract for public services or delivering public goods, you have to have it sanctioned by the ANC.

All this could certainly work without Zuma, but he is simply too useful for his cronies to depose him. The corrupt elite he enables are anxious to safeguard their personal revenue-raising schemes. The president is a lightning rod: as long as he’s the focus of public attention, most of his dubious associates are not.

And so they prop up an unpopular president, one who looks increasingly silly, so they can continue go about their business – which amounts to nothing less than the slow ransacking of the nation.

Gordhan might be able to keep making a stand, and he’s no doubt trying his best. But a pebble in a river is not a dam. South Africa’s corrupt elite are too lazy for their pillage to be especially sophisticated or elusive, and in one sense, that’s just as well. But in another, it simply adds to the disaster engulfing the South African body politic and body economic.

Nobody thinks any more about modernity, internationalism, South Africa’s disappearing place in the sun. Nobody thinks of complex engagement with the rest of the world. The theme of the moment is plain and simple theft on a national scale by those who control the party and the state alike.

Stephen Chan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Even A&E where the pressure is at its greatest, we are seeing and treating people faster than any country anywhere in the world that measures A&E performance.

Jeremy Hunt, health minister, speaking at the Health Debate election hustings, echoing comments he made in January on the NHS in England.

International definitions of health service performance are generally incomparable. All countries have systems that have evolved independently and have different descriptors of priority.

In many countries, access to emergency health care is achieved through the strength of the patient’s insurance or the contents of their wallet. A&E arrangements take significantly different forms internationally and many countries don’t have dedicated emergency medicine personnel. For example, in Germany and Sweden emergencies are treated by assorted specialists from around the hospital.

Systems are considerably different from the UK model, as outlined in the annex to a 2014 evidence report published by Monitor, the sector regulator for health services in England. Arrangements for 24/7 cover are common to Australia, some parts of Canada, the US and some Nordic countries, although these are often staffed by on call medical staff and not permanent cover. GPs also play a larger part in some countries, such as the Netherlands.

In citing the good performance of NHS waiting times, Jeremy Hunt is likely to be referring to this evidence report, which includes a graph showing that in comparison with Victoria in Australia, the Canadian province of Ontario and the city of Stockholm, a higher percentage of people in England left A&E within four hours.

It’s clear that this is not a comprehensive international comparison of the speed of A&E waiting times around the world.

It’s also worth pointing out that waiting times and targets vary around the UK. The BBC helpfully tracks the latest data on A&E waiting times in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

In England the expectation is that 95% of patients will be seen, assessed, admitted or discharged within four hours. In England, data on this target is released each Friday, and for the year to date, 92.7% of people in all A&E departments were seen within four hours. In Scotland, where the target is to see 98% of patients within four hours, for the month of February, 87.9% were seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

In January in Wales, 82.3% met the 95% target, and in Northern Ireland, 74.8% were seen within four hours.

Verdict

Regrettably Jeremy Hunt is not comparing like with like in his comparisons so his assertion of international excellence on A&E waiting times is dubious.

Review

Jeremy Hunt’s statement is probably the only way to put positive spin on the English A&E waiting time figures. Even then there is little comfort in the claim because, as the author points out, few countries measure A&E performance as the NHS does. We should not be reassured by comparison with three regions elsewhere.

A&E performance in England has been deteriorating under the coalition. Labour introduced a target that no more than 2% of patients should wait more than four hours in A&E from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge. From 2005, this target was usually met, though A&E departments struggled over the winter. The coalition relaxed the target to 5%, but even this less demanding target was not met this winter.

A&E departments take the pressure when other parts of the system aren’t working properly. People turn to A&E if their social care support has been cut back, or they can’t get a GP appointment, or because the new 111 service advises more people to go to A&E than the old NHS Direct did.

Patients stay in A&E longer than necessary because there aren’t enough consultants willing to work in this stressful environment and because hospital beds are filled with patients facing delayed discharge because social care support has been cut.

A&E departments are at the centre of a complex system but past calls to address the A&E crisis have gone unheeded. The problems are simply getting worse. – Andrew Street

Andrew Street receives funding from the National Institute of Health Research and the Department of Health's Policy Research Programme but the views expressed are his own.

Peter Bradshaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

The economy continues to be the election campaign’s main battleground today. Labour will be setting out its plans to ban what it calls “exploitative” zero hour contracts. We’ll be keeping an eye on the detail behind announcement. We’re also looking into the Conservatives’ contention that the contracts account for “1 in 50 jobs in our...

The post 1 April: zero hour contracts and an open letter from business leaders appeared first on Full Fact.

South African President Jacob Zuma delivered a speech yesterday to commemorate national Youth Day. Africa Check has teamed up with LiveVIPZA to factcheck his claims.

The post CHECKED: SA President’s Youth Day claims appeared first on Africa Check.

About 8 million working age adults have ‘below-functional’ numeracy skills and about 5 million have ‘below-functional’ literacy skills in England. England and Northern Ireland score particularly badly on numeracy compared to other major economies. Research has suggested that this could be because we narrow our learning at an earlier age than other high-performing OECD countries, curtailing the development of […]

The post Counting the cost of poor literacy and numeracy skills appeared first on Full Fact.

Around 86,000 people are in prisons in England and Wales.

The prison population peaked at 88,000 in 2011, partly explained by the riots that summer, before falling to 84,000 at the end of 2012.

The total population of the UK has also increased over time. There were 182 prisoners per 100,000 adults in England and Wales in 2015. This is higher than historic levels back to 1901, apart from the peak in 2011, according to the House of Commons Library.

Space in prisons

The total number of prisoners that the Ministry of Justice says it can hold “without serious risk”, the operational capacity, has increased broadly with the number of prisoners.

However, the uncrowded capacity which represents “the good, decent standard” accommodation the service aims for has been lower than the population for almost all of the past 20 years.

A quarter of prisoners are held in crowded accommodation according to official figures.

Number of staff

Around 24,000 people work in operational roles in the prison service. 10,500 more work in non-operational roles, like management, administration and services.

The number of staff in both areas has fallen since 2010, our earliest data. In March 2015 there  were 30% fewer operational staff, and 25% fewer non-operational staff, than there were in March 2010. The fall in the number of non-operational staff is partly due to jobs being transferred to other organisations.

There are 15,000 ‘front-line’ prison officers working at band 3 or 4, who are not in management or supporting roles. That number is down from 20,000 in 2010, measuring by ‘full-time equivalents’ rather than headcount in all cases.

We’ve looked at these figures in more detail in a previous factcheck.

More frontline officers left than were recruited or promoted every year until 2015. Although this changed in 2015 (with 507 net new officers) the total number of full-time equivalent frontline officers was still lower than the previous year.

The government announced on 3 November that it plans to recruit 2,500 new frontline officers by 2018.

Violence in prison

All headline measures of prison safety show increasing violence in the last year.

Statistics are measured for the 12 months to September (deaths) or June (other measures).

Last year 324 people died in prison, a 21% increase compared to 2015. 107 of these deaths were self-inflicted (the prison service doesn’t assume intention). For every 1,000 prisoners 1.3 ended their own life, up from 1.1 in 2015.

The number of self-harm incidents increased by 26% in 2016, and the number of people self-harming by 23%. There were 36,000 incidents of self-harm. For every 1,000 prisoners, 123 self-harmed. In 2015 it had been 101 per 1,000.

Assaults on other prisoners and staff are also more common. There were 208 ‘prisoner on prisoner’ assault incidents per 1,000 prisoners, an increase of 32%. Assaults on prison staff increased by 40%, to a rate of 70 incidents per 1,000 prisoners.

The House of Commons Library has published a report about recent concerns over prison safety, examining possible causes of the increasing violence.

HM Inspectorate of Prisons focused on the subject in its last annual report, saying safety outcomes from its assessments were worse than any time between 2007 and 2014.

The government put out a White Paper, Prison Safety and Reform, in November 2016, promising to “address the current level of violence and safety issues in our prisons”.

Figures given by Channel 4 News on asylum seekers are correct: in the first three months of 2015, six EU countries received more applications than Britain.

The post How many asylum seekers has Britain had? appeared first on Full Fact.

“Thousands of hardworking young people still have to live in the same bedroom they lived in as children.” Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat press release, 10 April 2015. The Liberal Democrats have proposed  to make government loans available to young adults so they can cover the costs of a tenancy deposit and move out of their parent’s […]

The post How many young people could benefit from Help-to-Rent? appeared first on Full Fact.

“We have seen many more people from the EU coming to Britain than originally anticipated, principally because our economy has been growing so much more rapidly and creating more jobs than other EU countries. As a result, our action has not been enough to cut annual net migration to the tens of thousands.”—Conservative Manifesto The […]

The post Is EU immigration to blame for missing the net migration target? appeared first on Full Fact.

The post Press and politicians not trusted to present statistics honestly appeared first on Full Fact.

A legal case on parental fines for taking children out of school for holidays wasn't the landmark it was reported to be last month—but might turn out to be.

The post “Holiday fines” case heads to High Court appeared first on Full Fact.