Welsh Government launches blog to fact check policy claims
Emily Price
The Welsh Government has launched its own fact checker blog to debunk myths and misinformation spread about its policies.
The ‘For the Record’ blog was published on the government’s website on Thursday (September 19).
It states that it is an open resource to “fact check and clarify claims” made about Welsh Government policies to “help inform public understanding”.
Similar blogs are run by other governments and government departments, like the UK Government’s ‘Defra in the Media’ blog which debunks misleading press coverage.
So far the Welsh Government has published two article quashing claims made by the Welsh Conservatives and the English press about payments to asylum seekers and sex education in Welsh schools.
Care leavers
The Welsh Government’s Basic Income for Care Leavers pilot hit the headlines last year after a number of senior Tories claimed the scheme was a hand out to “illegal migrants”.
The trial involved paying £1,600 each every month to a group of 635 care leavers for the first two years of leaving the care system.
It aimed to address the challenges faced by young people leaving local authority care or foster care and transitioning into adulthood.
The pilot included a number of unaccompanied asylum seeking children who were being looked after by a local authority.
Former Welsh Secretary David TC Davies and Tory Senedd leader Andrew RT Davies were both criticised for characterising the pilot as an asylum seeker only policy.
The Welsh Government’s new fact checker blog states: “As of July 31, 2024, 644 individuals benefited from the basic income payment, including 74 current or former unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children.
“They are not ‘illegal migrants’ but children who arrived in Wales without parents or guardians and were looked after in the care system.”
Earlier this year, Andrew RT Davies also published an X post claiming that schools in Wales were “teaching sex education to three-year-olds”.
His comments came after the former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that schools in England would be banned from teaching sex education to children under nine.
The sex education accusation also appeared in several tabloids.
Three-year-old children in Wales are not taught about sex in schools – but the curriculum does advise that pupils should be taught about relationships and how to recognise harmful behaviour.
The Welsh Government’s For the Record blog states: “For early years, the focus is on fostering healthy relationships, building self-esteem, recognising and communicating feelings, and forming friendships. These lessons do not include romantic relationships.”
Homework
Welsh Conservative shadow cabinet minister Natasha Asghar criticised the new blog and accused the Welsh Government of marking their own homework.
She said:”What does it say about the Welsh Government and its communication skills if they are having to rollout a fact-checking blog for their own policies.
“This just smacks of the Welsh Government marking their own homework. It is utterly bewildering.”
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “‘For the record’ is a resource run by the Welsh Government press office to provide factual information on areas of policy that may require further clarification.
“It will also provide additional information and background material for those with an interest in the particular area.”
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Well, ARTD gets his “facts” from GBeebies. You know, that reform conspiracy channel. Maybe Natasha Asghar needs a chat with her boss on “facts”, or perhaps take his job.
So Andrew RT Davies was correct and it’s that 74 child asylum seekers leaving care got the £1,600 a month handout. The Labour objection is the use of the term “illegal”. True. By definition a child cannot be called illegal during the qualifying period of care. It also states that this number included those resident in England who are technically looked after by a local authority in Wales. British citizens cannot be trafficked across the border. These will be children of foreign nationality arriving from Kent and shipped out (or recorded as so) under the ‘National Transfer Scheme’. The boats… Read more »
Fact check – Andrew RT Davies said “Labour want to pay legal immigrants £1,600 a month”. No clarification, no detail. That’s hardly the same as the facts noted in the new blog.
Surely, there are none that fits your hypothesis. The UK government does not indulge in child snatching from foreign countries. Legal migration status is done by dint of award to a parent, and by definition, the child is not in local authority care.
If you want the facts consult nation.cymru…
Only blog I am reading is J O T N…
The idea strikes me as in principle a good one, but whether it can work effectively in hard empirical reality is a different matter altogether.
Whose fact checking the fact checker?
The traditional and social medias will soon notice if the fact checking website isn’t accurate.