The Scottish Conservatives launched their manifesto this week, urging Scots to move on “from the SNP’s divisive independence obsession” and get the focus onto other issues affecting the country.
Ferret Fact Service fact-checked five claims from the document.
Claim: “61% of Scotland’s exports (went) to the rest of the UK in 2021.”
The manifesto pledges to cut taxes, and promote trade between Scotland and the rest of the UK, claiming that the UK is Scotland’s largest trading partner.
Scotland’s total exports in 2021 were £79.8bn. Of these, exports to the UK were worth about £48.6bn. This was 61 per cent of the total.
Exports include products like whisky or Scottish seafood, or financial services provided by Scottish banks or insurance firms, for example.
These statistics do not include oil and gas exports from the North Sea, as fossil fuel extracted from the UK continental shelf is considered to be a UK export.
Ferret Fact Service verdict: True
Claim: “We have created four million more jobs” in the UK.
When the Conservatives got into power in May 2010, the number of people over 16 in employment was estimated at 29,013,000. The latest statistics for February to April 2024 show 32,967,000 people in work. This is an increase of 3,954,000 people in employment.
Does this mean there have been four million jobs created? Not quite. That rise is the net amount of people in work, rather than the number of jobs. Some people can have two jobs, for example.
The Office For National Statistics actually does gather statistics on the number of jobs. In March 2024, the total number of jobs increased to 37.2 million. In March 2010, there were 31.5 million jobs in the UK workforce. This is an increase of 5.7 million jobs, a figure significantly more than claimed.
Broadly speaking, the number of jobs in the workforce has increased across the last 70 years, with occasional decreases such as during the financial crisis in the late 2000s, or the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ferret Fact Service verdict: Mostly True
Claim: “The SNP cut over 1,000 Scottish teachers and ELC (early learning and childcare) staff since 2007.”
In 2007, there were 55,100 teachers in total working in Scottish schools. By 2023, there were 54,033. This is a reduction of 1,067 teachers, or a two per cent cut.
The number of early learning staff has reduced from 1,689 to 702.
Ferret Fact Service verdict: True
Claim: “Illegal migrants ‘jump the queue in front of people who play by the rules’.”
The manifesto states that “illegal migration is unfair,” and that those coming in irregular routes “jump the queue in front of people who play by the rules”.
“Illegal migration” likely refers to what’s known as irregular migration, which is a term that describes people who come to the UK or stay here without official permission.
Ferret Fact Service has written before about irregular migration, which commonly happens when someone comes to the UK through an unrecognised route like small boat crossings, overstays on a visa, or uses false documents to enter the country.
Ninety-two percent of people who came to the UK in small boat crossings from 2018 to March 2023 applied for asylum in the UK. Under international law, refugees can apply for asylum in any country which has signed the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which includes the UK.
This asylum process is not impacted by the route they take to enter the country.
There are currently a few specific schemes the UK has put in place to accept refugees, But these are for specific conflicts such as Ukraine and Afghanistan, as well as British national visas for Hong Kong.
There are no routes which allow people to come to the UK and apply for asylum legally, and no routes for many refugees to apply from outside the country. This means there is no “queue” of people applying on “regular” routes.
There is a significant backlog of asylum claims the UK Government has yet to process, but there is no way to “jump” this queue by coming to the UK illegally.
Ferret Fact Service verdict: False
Claim: “Under the SNP, violent crime is at its highest level for at least six years.”
Crime statistics are published by the Scottish Government each year, broken down by different types of offence.
Scottish figures separate out non-sexual crimes of violence. This includes various offences such as murder, serious assault, robbery and domestic violence.
The crime statistics are measured in a couple of different ways, either by financial year or calendar year.
When the Scottish Conservative manifesto was published on 24 June, the latest statistics for 2023-24 had yet to be released.
Looking at the financial year, in 2022-23, there were 68,870 non-sexual violent crimes, which was slightly lower than the previous year, where 69,286 violent crimes were recorded. The 2023-24 figures, released after the manifesto was launched, show violent crime at 71,463, which is the highest since 2011-12.
Non-sexual violent crimes hit its peak in Scotland in 2006-07, when it hit 92,266 recorded crimes. The lowest number was recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic restriction in 2020-21, with 61,913 crimes recorded by police.
However, the Scottish Conservatives are using statistics looking at the calendar year – January to December. On this measure, there were 71,900 violent crimes recorded in 2023, which would be the highest since at least 2018, when calendar year data began to be collected and published.
Ferret Fact Service verdict: Mostly True
Ferret Fact Service (FFS) is a non-partisan fact checker, and signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network fact-checkers’ code of principles.
All the sources used in our checks are publicly available and the FFS fact-checking methodology can be viewed here.
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