Complaint
This programme was a special edition dealing with the single topic of immigration. At one point the Liberal Democrat member of the panel, Daisy Cooper MP, said “In 2017 there was not a single asylum seeker that arrived on a small boat. Durham university did the research. Not a single person”. A viewer complained that this statement was inaccurate, and should have been challenged by the presenter. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of accuracy.
Outcome
Ms Cooper apparently based her claim on a report by Professor Thom Brooks of Durham University, which in turn relied on a written answer in the House of Lords by the Home Office Minister, Baroness Williams of Trafford in 2022, when she said there were “no small boat crossing attempts” before 2018. The ECU noted this was not consistent with other evidence (for example that of David Raynes, former assistant chief investigation officer, HM Customs and Excise, National Investigation Service, who told BBC News in July last year “As I recall, the first boats in 2014/15 were making it across and hitting the beaches”), and accepted that Ms Cooper’s claim was at least debatable. Even allowing for some uncertainty, however, the ECU did not consider viewers were likely to have been materially misled. The lack of clarity on the numbers appears to arise from the fact that no record was kept by the Home Office until late in 2018, by which time migration in small boats had significantly increased – and evidence of occasional attempts before that time would not conflict with Ms Cooper’s main point, which was that numbers only became problematic after the UK exited the Dublin III Regulation which had provided for the fast-track return of illegal immigrants.
Not upheld