Round-up of fact checks from the last few days compiled by Full Fact.
This round-up of claims has been compiled by Full Fact, the UK’s independent fact-checking charity which works to give people access to reliable information they can trust.
Online claims about Number 10 North
Images of a council decision notice have been widely shared on social media with claims that they show a lease for the Manchester offices used by Number 10 North was agreed before Andy Burnham was elected to Parliament in June.
But this is not correct, according to both Manchester City Council and the Cabinet Office, who say the decision notice has nothing to do with Number 10 North.
The council says Number 10 North — a Downing Street unit based in Manchester — is located elsewhere within Heron House, in offices which were already being leased by the Government.
And while we do not have an exact timeline, the Cabinet Office says preparatory work for Number 10 North took place during the Labour leadership contest, which happened after Andy Burnham was elected as an MP.
The decision notice published by Manchester City Council details the approval on June 10 of a proposal for a new lease of a vacant second-floor office suite at Heron House with an unnamed occupant.
Theories about the notice have been circulating widely online in recent days, after it was confirmed that Number 10 North would be initially based in the building in Manchester’s Albert Square. Heron House also hosts the intelligence agency GCHQ and the Manchester Register Office, as well as a Slug and Lettuce bar and restaurant.
Posts on X and Facebook have shared images of the decision notice and claimed it shows Manchester City Council approving a lease for “the exact Heron House suite now used as Number 10 North” on June 10.
Separately, Reform UK politicians have also raised questions about the document. Last week the party’s chairman Lee Anderson MP wrote to Mr Burnham to ask whether the lease was “pre-agreed before you became Prime Minister”, and Reform’s Greater Manchester mayoral candidate Sian Astley posted an image of the decision notice on her social media and said questions about the lease would be put via a “formal request” to Manchester City Council. We have contacted Mr Anderson and Ms Astley for comment.
Mr Burnham was elected as the MP for Makerfield in a by-election held on June 18, and announced his plans for Number 10 North on June 29.
While we cannot say for certain when Mr Burnham and his team began discussing their ambitions for a Number 10 North to be established, or what conversations were had ahead of the announcement, there is no evidence that the document being shared online has anything to do with these plans.
We contacted both Manchester City Council and the Cabinet Office about the posts.
Manchester City Council told us that the decision notice related to a part of the Heron House building that has been let to “various organisations in recent years”.
A spokesperson added: “We can confirm that this lease deal has been in motion for some time and was concluded in June — it is a lease in a different part of Heron House and it is not linked to No 10 in the North or GCHQ.
“The online speculation about pre-planning [a] No 10 move to Heron House is incorrect — and why this lease agreement is dated before the Makerfield by-election.”
While the leaseholder the decision notice relates to has not been publicly named, the council told Full Fact that it is an arm’s-length public body which is not currently based in Heron House, and which is not related to Downing Street.
The council also told us that because Number 10 North has been established within existing office space which was already being leased by the Government, there was no change of use in planning terms and so no requirement for the Government to inform the council about how it uses the space.
The Cabinet Office also said the decision notice was unrelated to Number 10 North and was for different office space elsewhere in the building.
It also said that preparatory work for Number 10 North took place during the Labour leadership contest (in which Mr Burnham was elected unopposed) as part of access talk arrangements.
The NHS is not offering Premier League tickets as a treatment for depression
Several widely-shared social media posts have claimed the NHS is considering offering Premier League match tickets as a treatment for depression.
But this is not correct. NHS England has described the claim as “not true”, explaining that although there was a small local pilot in Gloucestershire for lower-league football, this was not for Premier League tickets.
The claim has been shared across X, Facebook and Instagram, and “liked” thousands of times in recent days. Some versions suggest the story comes from Sky Sports News, but we could not find any articles about this on Sky’s website, and a spokesperson told fact checkers at Reuters that Sky Sports News had not reported that the NHS was planning to make Premier League football a treatment for depression.
The local pilot in Gloucestershire was announced in July 2025. It saw Forest Green Rovers, which competes in the National League, the fifth level of the English football league system, team up with a dozen doctors’ surgeries across Stroud to make “football part of the treatment plan for mental health”.
We could find no evidence for any NHS initiatives treating depression with Premier League football.
