Fact check: Reform UK’s NHS policy and Labour’s free breakfast clubs pledge
This roundup of claims has been compiled by Full Fact, the UK’s largest fact checking charity working to find, expose and counter the harms of bad information.
Is Labour right to claim Reform UK would ‘scrap the NHS’?
Ahead of this week’s local elections in England, the Labour party repeatedly claimed that Reform UK will make voters pay to use the NHS, or that it intends to “scrap the NHS” altogether. Labour also quoted specific prices that it suggested people would have to pay for healthcare under a Reform UK government, such as £129 for a GP visit or £10,958 to have an appendix removed.
We’ve seen these claims posted on the Labour party’s official social media channels, and by the health secretary, various MPs, local Labour groups and local government councillors.
The figures quoted by Labour, supposedly of the prices people might pay for healthcare under Reform UK, are Labour’s own. This is not made clear in many of the Labour posts that shared the figures.
Reform UK has said it is committed to keeping the NHS free at the point of delivery, as stated in its 2024 election manifesto. And in a social media post last month it said “Reform will never charge you to use the NHS”.
Labour, though, has pointed to various comments made by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, including recently, in which he has suggested he is open to considering other funding models for the NHS. In March, for example, while again saying he believed the service should be free at the point of delivery, Mr Farage reportedly told the BBC: “Everyone knows we are not getting value, let’s re-examine the whole funding model and find a way that’s more efficient.”
And speaking on April 18, Mr Farage addressed Labour’s claims head on, saying: “On the NHS, they’re putting out literature saying ‘Vote Reform and they’ll charge you fifteen grand for a hip replacement’. We’ve never ever, ever suggested anything other than the NHS should be free.”
Currently, the vast majority of funding for the NHS in England comes from general taxation and National Insurance contributions. A small proportion – around 1% – of the Department of Health and Social Care’s budget comes from patient charges, such as for prescriptions and dental treatment.
Is the government on course to provide free breakfast clubs in every primary school?
At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday April 30, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the government had opened the first 750 free breakfast clubs across the country, and that “there will be many more to come”.
This refers to a commitment in Labour’s 2024 general election manifesto, which promised: “We will support families with children by introducing free breakfast clubs in every primary school.” It relates to primary schools in England, as education is devolved in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and will require schools to offer free breakfasts to pupils and 30 minutes of childcare before lessons begin.
It’s true that in April the government launched a pilot programme involving some 750 schools in England, as the Prime Minister said. But a timeframe for the rollout to all primary schools across England has not yet been confirmed.
Some teaching unions have raised concerns that the £30 million in funding for the pilot programme is not sufficient, while the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated in June 2024 that £315 million, the cost of the entire scheme according to Labour’s manifesto, may not be enough to fund a full rollout, depending on pupil uptake and the model of breakfast club the government ultimately chooses.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, told Full Fact: “While we welcome the intentions behind the programme, the initial feedback we are hearing from many school leaders participating in the pilot is that the funding just isn’t sufficient.
“At a time when school budgets are already stretched, most can ill-afford to subsidise this shortfall.”
But ministers have insisted that there will be enough funding to ensure every state-funded primary school gets a free breakfast club.
Full Fact is monitoring progress on this and other pledges on our Government Tracker.