Patrick Worrall

“The Honourable Lady is not wrong. But Mr Cameron was only telling half the story when he said: “We are not cutting benefits for disabled children.”

“A consultant retiring aged 60 after 35 years on the median average salary of £120,000 would get a pension of £52,500 a year plus a cash lump sum of £157,500. The equivalent cost of buying this pension in the private sector? Around £1.6m.”

“Some of the 371,000 might have made substantial contributions to the exchequer through tax and National Insurance deductions for many years, and only claimed benefits for a short time.”

“If this was a boxing match, we’d give Mr Cameron a narrow win on points.”

“At time of writing, it remains unclear how the government attempts to make the two key numbers match up.”

“There’s good evidence that the John Lewis effect is not just a fluke. Employee-owned companies, particularly the smaller businesses the government is so keen to back, often do better than others.”

FactCheck Q&A on the new deal for public sector pensions – is it any good; who are the winners and losers?

Mr Miliband reminded MPs of the Chancellor’s optimistic assessment at the time of the spending review in November last year. George Osborne said at the time that private sector job creation would “far outweigh” cuts in public sector employment. But have those high hopes – based on forecasts from the independent Office of Budget Responsibility, been dashed?

“An EU-wide Robin Hood Tax – which John Major called a “heat-seeking missile” pointed at the heart of the Square Mile (surely it should have been an arrow?) – does now appear to have stalled on the launchpad.”

The claim “Is the Prime Minister aware that in the last financial year, taxpayers paid over £113 million to trade unions in terms of paid staff time and direct grants?” Laurence Robertson, 30 November 2011 “I think the idea of full-time trade unionists, working in the public sector on trade union business rather than serving…

In their 2010 manifesto the Tories say: “We will legislate in the first session of a new parliament to lock in this level of spending for every year from 2013.” Clearly, no such legislation has been forthcoming.

“The bad news for Mr Balls is that the OECD specifically praises coalition policy on cutting the deficit and keeping borrowing rates low in helping to create the right conditions for that recovery.”

“The ‘jobs’ for young people would be similarly temporary in nature, FactCheck has learned. Although it sounds like a new idea, Labour aides told us that the £600m youth jobs fund will basically be a re-run of a highly controversial old policy…”

“These figures show just how much our economy is being affected by the crisis in the eurozone.” Chris Grayling, September 16 2011 The background The employment minister has pinned the blame for this week’s dire unemployment figures firmly on the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. We’ve already FactChecked the claim – increasing popular on the…

“In fact, it seems only a tiny minority of people who have already been dealt with by the courts have been ordered to don the famous orange vests. The precise number, according to London Probation Trust, is 15 in the capital.”