The Inexperienced Celebration and Reform UK - Query Time debate fact-checked

The co-leader of the Inexperienced Celebration Adrian Ramsay and Reform UK’s chief Nigel Farage confronted viewers questions on Friday night in a Query Time Leaders’ particular programme. From small boats, to leaky houses and Brexit – we examined a few of their solutions.

Calling for higher funding in public transport, Mr Ramsay stated: “Now we have a few of the most costly rail costs in Europe.”

Evaluating prepare fares throughout international locations is troublesome as a result of costs differ relying on the gap travelled, when the journey is taken and the way far upfront tickets are purchased.

A European Commission report did try to match fares throughout Europe in 2016. It discovered the UK had the most costly inter-city fares for peak single tickets, the fourth most costly regional, peak, single fares purchased on the day of journey and the third most costly if purchased every week or a month upfront.

For off-peak journey, UK regional return fares had been near the common for Europe.

Since 2016, rail fares within the UK have increased by 35% – the fourth highest increase in Europe, after Lithuania (63%), Sweden (40%), and Poland (36%). The EU-average improve was 12%.

By Gerry Georgieva

Answering a query about migrants coming to the UK in small boats, Mr Farage stated: “We’ll decide them up within the Channel and take them again” to France.

Returning migrants to France is considered one of his occasion’s “core pledges” to voters.

Nevertheless, it isn’t clear how it might be capable to do that underneath worldwide legislation.

Worldwide maritime legal guidelines do permit a state to select folks up at sea if they’re “in peril of being misplaced” however they don’t permit them to be taken to a different state with out that nation agreeing.

BBC Confirm spoke to 2 authorized specialists.

James M Turner KC, a delivery lawyer at Quadrant Chambers, instructed us: “The French must grant specific permission for UK vessels to hold rescued folks via their territorial waters and to depart them ashore in France.”

Whereas Ainhoa Campàs Velasco, a maritime legislation knowledgeable from the College of Southampton, stated migrants couldn’t be returned to French shores “with out prior settlement with France”.

There isn’t any such settlement between the UK and France.

The 2 international locations agreed a joint action plan in 2019 which does present for co-operation, nevertheless it doesn’t permit one nation to carry folks rescued within the English Channel to the opposite nation’s ports.

Mr Farage additionally stated in his reply that, if mandatory, he would use the Royal Marines.

By Tamara Kovacevic

Speaking about folks’s excessive vitality payments, Inexperienced Celebration co-leader Adrian Ramsay pointed to the UK having the “leakiest houses in Europe and we have not insulated them”.

It’s true that UK homes typically lose heat more quickly than their European neighbours – in some cases up to three times as fast.

That will increase the vitality wanted to take care of comfy room temperatures in winter, that means increased vitality payments and extra greenhouse gasoline emissions.

A part of the reason being the UK’s housing inventory, which is among the many oldest in Europe.

One more reason is poor charges of insulation becoming. These fell sharply in England within the second-half of the 2010s after former PM David Cameron cut funding for green schemes.

Final yr, the federal government launched the Great British Insulation Scheme in England, Scotland and Wales, to assist cowl the price of higher insulation in about 300,000 of the poorest-performing houses.

Nevertheless, in September, Rishi Sunak scrapped regulations that will have required landlords to satisfy minimal vitality effectivity requirements for privately rented houses.

This transfer “will result in increased family vitality payments”, the independent Climate Change Committee said.

By Mark Poynting

Mr Farage was requested concerning the UK leaving the European Union and stated: “We have gone from the day we voted Brexit to now, from being the world’s seventh greatest exporter to the world’s fourth greatest exporter.”

This can be a declare that BBC Radio 4’s More or Less has been looking into.

The important thing level is that the UK has solely reached fourth place for those who embody gold, and the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics (ONS), which compiles the commerce figures, warns treasured metals “can be large and highly volatile, distorting underlying trends in goods exports and imports”.

Emily Fry, from the Decision Basis suppose tank, has defined that this gold is usually the kind that sits in vaults and is traded with out essentially transferring it between international locations.

She has identified that when you exclude gold, the UK drops to being the sixth greatest exporter.

By Anthony Reuben, BBC Confirm