Has Gordon Brown been making up numbers?

By Mark Pack | Thu 18th March 2010 - 7:20 pm

For two weeks now Full Fact has been trying to find out the basis of Gordon Brown’s claim that 300,000 businesses in the UK have been provided with direct cash-flow help from the Government.

In a piece published on 4 March, Full Fact examined the claim made by the Prime Minister in a speech to the Welsh Labour party. Despite numerous requests, emails and phone calls neither BIS, HMRC, Downing Street, The Treasury nor the Labour party were able to say where the figures came from.

But with Mr Brown again using the claim during yesterday’s PMQs, Full Fact has revisited the investigation, but to no avail.

Despite assurances our request was being looked into, there has been no response from the Labour party. Downing Street insisted it was a matter for the Treasury. The Treasury press team, apparently now questioning the need to respond to requests from online media outlets, insisted this was not a press inquiry and referred us to the ever-engaged public inquiry line.

So nearly two weeks, and a helluva lot of phone calls later, we are no nearer to an explanation. Our search for the facts behind the figure is not over, we are determined to provide you with the information. Stay tuned for the next update.

3 Comments

Peter1919 19th Mar '10 - 1:01am

300 000 does seem a suspiciously large number to have received direct cash flow help from the government. It did strike me as a bit unlikely when I heard it during PMQs
Chris Stanbra 19th Mar '10 - 8:11am

Might be related to the help with business rates that the government has given where a proportion of the increase has been deferred. Its very small sums though and still works out at around 450 businesses per constituency.
Liberal Eye 19th Mar '10 - 12:25pm

Re Chris’ comment. It might also include deals providing for deferred VAT payments.