Do Labour's election manifesto claims stand up?

From Brexit to taxes, crime to carbon emissions, we take a look at 10 claims made by Labour in its manifesto launched on Thursday and check whether they all stand up:

Claim: Labour will strike a new Brexit deal within three months of taking office.

Reality: Although Labour says it “will rip up the deeply flawed deal negotiated by Boris Johnson”, much of his deal is based on Theresa May’s and this is likely to be the template for Labour too. Like May, it wants a “comprehensive” UK-wide customs arrangement with the EU. The other extras it wants, such as close alignment with the single market and dynamic alignment on workers’ rights and environmental protections, will pose major challenges for the EU.

Claim: The Conservatives have repeatedly raised the state pension age despite overseeing a decline in life expectancy.

Reality: The state pension age has increased under a Conservative government – some of the changes were in the pipeline before the party came to power, but it has been involved in speeding them up. Plans to raise the female state pension age to 65 were introduced in 1995, but brought forward in 2011 by the coalition government. It also sped up plans for everyone to be able to draw their pension at 66. Further increases to 67, then 68, were timetabled by the coalition, then brought forward by the Conservatives. And while life expectancy across the UK has increased since 2010, those improvements ground to a halt between 2015 and 2017.

Claim: A Labour government will end the “hostile environment” for immigrants which caused the Windrush scandal of British citizens being deported.

Reality: The manifesto says it will rip up the Immigration Act 2014, which includes some, but not all, of the policies often described as constituting the “hostile environment”, such as checking people’s right to rent. However, the environment extends beyond this act. Under the Immigration Act 2016, which is not referenced, employers who hire people who are in the UK illegally face criminal sanctions, forcing businesses to take on the duties of immigration enforcement.

Claim: Currently people can earn more income from buying property than from working for a living, and they can pay lower taxes on that.

Reality: It is true that in some parts of the UK rent and house price rises have made property owners more than the average salary. But the claim about tax is not entirely true: you can earn £1,000 a year in rent without paying tax, but after that you will be charged the same as on other income. Any gains you make when selling property will be taxed at a higher rate once you have used up your £12,000 capital gains tax allowance. You won’t, however, be charged national insurance on property income.

Claim: Our communities were endangered when the Conservatives took 21,000 police officers off our streets.

Reality: The effect of falling police officer numbers remains unclear. Violent crime as recorded by police fell between 2009 and 2014 when police officer numbers were being cut, and has been increasing since 2014. The most recent Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) shows most people are not victims of crime.

Claim: Recorded crime has risen, including violence such as knife crime, which has risen to record levels.

Reality: It is correct that the rate of recorded violent crime has increased in the last few years. However, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) says the CSEW is the most reliable indicator for long-term trends. This records people’s experience of crime. The CSEW shows no change in the level of violence in recent years. For the offences and population that it covers, the CSEW provides the best measure of trends for overall violent crime.

Claim: Britain is decades off course on vital emissions targets.

Reality: The independent committee on climate change (CCC) monitors progress towards emission targets. The government has committed to reduce emissions by at least 100% of 1990 levels – net zero – by 2050. It has set five-yearly carbon budgets which currently run until 2032. The CCC says the first carbon budget (2008-12) and the second (2013-17) have been met and the UK is on track to meet the third (2018-22), but is not on track to meet the fourth, which covers 2023-27. Meeting future carbon budgets and the UK’s 2050 target will require reducing domestic emissions by at least 3% of 2018 emissions – that is 50% higher than under the UK’s previous 2050 target and 30% higher than achieved on average since 1990, the committee says.

Claim: There are 100,000 staff vacancies in NHS England, including a shortage of 43,000 nurses. There are 15,000 fewer hospital beds.

Reality: Figures from NHS Improvement show that as of the end of March there were more than 96,348 vacancies at trusts in England. The report states that these figures come from “management information” and are not official statistics. It also states that there are agency and bank staff in some of these positions, although it does not give a figure. So not all of that workforce is missing, but the NHS may be spending more than if those positions were filled permanently. A briefing paper by the House of Commons shows that the number of beds in England has fallen by 15,806 since 2010.

Claim: Labour says it will create a fairer taxation system, asking for a little more from those with the broadest shoulders.

Reality: Labour will introduce an additional rate on income tax payable from £80,000 and a new rate payable from £125,000. The Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank says this would affect only the top 3% of adult earners. And the IFS adds that this would account for less than a 10th of the additional revenue Labour says it would raise, with about three-quarters of the revenue coming from increasing taxes on companies and their shareholders. “It would be a mistake to think of this as falling entirely on ‘the rich’,” the IFS warns.

Claim: More than 85% of the burden of Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition cuts has fallen on the shoulders of women.

Reality: This figure has been quoted repeatedly by Labour over several years. In 2017 it was examined by researchers at the House of Commons Library, who pointed out that the calculations rested on assumptions about how resources were distributed within families. However, they also pointed to research showing that women were more likely to be receiving the benefits and tax credits that were cut during austerity. Last year, the UN special rapporteur, Philip Alston, said: “Changes to the support for single parents ... disproportionately affect women, who make up about 90% of single parents, and as of August of this year, two-thirds of universal credit recipients who had their benefits capped were single parents. Single pensioners are also driving the uptick in pensioner poverty, and are significantly more likely to be women.”