This round-up 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.
Has the UK pledged £40 billion to rebuild Gaza?
Multiple posts on Facebook and X have claimed that the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to give £40 billion to Gaza to help pay for its reconstruction.
But these posts are incorrect. The £40 billion figure appears to actually be an estimate of the overall cost of rebuilding Gaza, which will not be solely funded by the UK.
One such post says: “The UK government is set to hand over up to £40 billion in aid as a starter to help rebuild Gaza. Yet we are 2.9 Trillion in debt.”
We’ve found no evidence that the UK has committed, or plans to commit, £40 billion in aid or other support for reconstruction in Gaza, and a spokesperson from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office confirmed it was incorrect.
The figure of £40 billion instead likely comes from a World Bank assessment published in February 2025 about the cost of rebuilding Gaza. This estimated the recovery and reconstruction needs of the area to be 53 billion dollars – roughly the equivalent of £40 billion. This figure, which was also used in a plan for Gaza’s reconstruction presented by Egypt earlier this year, has been widely reported in the media.
A Government press release this week announced a £20 million humanitarian aid package as part of a broader £116 million the UK has committed to Palestine this year.
It is true, as several of the Facebook posts claim, that the UK’s public sector net debt is forecast to be approximately £2.9 trillion in 2025/26.
£27 monthly ‘wifi charge’ is not being introduced in the UK
Videos that falsely claim an extra monthly wifi charge ranging from £25 to £27 is being introduced for all households have also been circulating online.
But this isn’t happening. Full Fact asked the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology about the claims in the video, and it told us: “This is completely false misinformation. The Government is not introducing a monthly wifi charge to fund digital infrastructure.”
The clips, shared on Facebook, feature footage of the Prime Minister, and what seems to be his voice saying that “whether you use wifi or not, you’ll be forced to pay”.
Openreach, the company which runs the UK’s largest broadband network, including the infrastructure, also told us it was not aware of any such plans.
Other videos making similar claims have also been circulating on TikTok, one of which has been viewed almost 75,000 times.
The video used at the start of the clip is actually of Sir Keir speaking in September when the UK Government formally recognised the state of Palestine. His lip movements are not in sync with the voiceover.
And there are clues, from the unnatural cadence and pauses, and the fact that he appears to be criticising his own Government’s policy, that this audio is not really Sir Keir speaking. It has probably been generated with artificial intelligence (AI) — although we can’t rule out the possibility that it was faked in another way, for example by using an impersonator.
Is the UK’s national debt set to match the size of the economy?
In a speech at the recent Conservative party conference, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride MP claimed that under Labour “debt is set to rise every single year until it is the size of the entire economy”.
There are several different measures that are used when talking about public sector debt, and the picture over the coming years varies slightly depending on which you use.
Public Sector Net Debt (often referred to as “national debt”) is forecast to increase every year until 2029/30 in nominal and real terms — though as a percentage of GDP it is set to peak at 96.3% in 2028/29, then fall slightly.
Overall, debt is already high in historic terms, and the increases forecast over the next few years are relatively small compared to the very large rises seen over the last couple of decades.
The figures used here are based on the latest data published by the Office for Budget Responsibility, and are highly likely to change when the OBR releases its next forecast, shortly after Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivers the Autumn Budget on November 26.
We do not know exactly what figures Sir Mel was referring to in his speech, or when he made a similar claim on X the following day — we’ve asked his office, and not had a response. But as he mentioned “national debt” it appears likely that he was talking about Public Sector Net Debt, also sometimes referred to as overall debt, which is the measure which shows it being closest to the size of the UK’s economy.
Whether he was referring to this measure or either of the other two main debt measures, Sir Mel was right to say that the actual amount of debt is forecast to increase in each year of the forecast period (which currently runs to 2029/30). All three measures show this is true in both nominal and real terms.
