Public opinions and social trends, Great Britain: 24 April to 6 May 2024

The following information is for the latest survey period, 24 April to 6 May 2024, based on adults in Great Britain.

In the latest survey period, we asked some new questions about people's attitudes towards elections and social media use.

• Around 6 in 10 (58%) adults agreed (strongly agreed or agreed) with the statement "Elections in the UK are fair and democratic"; this proportion was higher among men (66%) compared with women (51%) and among adults aged 70 years and over (70%) compared with other age groups (55% among those aged 16 to 29 years, 53% among those aged 30 to 49 years, and 60% among those aged 50 to 69 years).

• When asked about what issues, if any, people were most concerned about when thinking about the process of the next general election, commonly reported issues were the spread of misinformation and "fake news" (64%), bias in the media (54%), foreign influence on UK election results (35%), the need for voters to present ID (19%), electoral fraud (18%), and the safety of candidates who run for election (15%); 18% reported that they did not have any concerns about the next general election.

• Around two thirds (65%) of adults reported using social media on a daily basis; this proportion was higher among adults aged 16 to 29 years (87%) compared with other age groups (73% among those aged 30 to 49 years, 60% among those aged 50 to 69 years, and 38% among those aged 70 years and over) and was higher among women (70%) compared with men (61%).

We continued to ask about what people felt were important issues facing the UK today.

• The most commonly reported issues were the cost of living (89%), the NHS (88%), and the economy (70%); these have been the top three issues reported by adults since October 2022.

• Other commonly reported issues were housing (64%), climate change and the environment (60%), crime (60%), and immigration (56%).

• The proportion of adults reporting housing as an important issue has increased since we first started asking about this in October 2022 (from 53% in the period 26 October to 6 November 2022 to 64% in the latest period).

We also asked about people's experiences of the cost of their housing payments in more detail. Among those who pay rent or mortgages:

• around 4 in 10 (41%) reported their rent or mortgage had gone up in the last in the last 6 months; this proportion remains higher than when we first asked about this in March 2022 (27% in the period 16 to 27 March 2022)

• around a third (36%) reported it was difficult (very or somewhat) to afford their rent or mortgage payments in the latest period; this proportion remains higher than when we first asked about this in March 2022 (30% during the period 16 to 27 March 2022)

This release contains data and indicators from the Office for National Statistics's (ONS's) Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN).

Breakdowns by age and sex have been provided for fortnightly estimates since the 27 March to 7 April 2024 edition of the Public opinions and social trends, Great Britain datasets. Prior to this, breakdowns by age and sex were reported until the 17 to 29 May 2023 edition of all datasets. This is based on routine review of the relevance and usefulness of this release. Estimates from the OPN by a variety of personal characteristics are provided on a regular basis in other ONS releases. For example, OPN estimates relating to the impact of the cost of living among different sub-groups of the population are provided within the regular Impact of increased cost of living on adults across Great Britain series.

Confidence intervals are provided for all estimates in the datasets. Where changes in results from previous weeks are presented in this release, or comparisons between estimates are made, associated confidence intervals should be used to assess the statistical significance of the differences. 

Sampling and weighting

In the latest period (24 April to 6 May 2024), we sampled 4,997 households. This sample was randomly selected from people who had previously completed the Labour Market Survey (LMS) or OPN. The responding sample for the latest period contained 2,645 individuals, representing a 53% response rate. This response rate is higher than in previous periods, likely as a result of an unconditional non-financial incentive (items of stationery) to participate being added to the survey in the latest period.

Survey weights were applied to make estimates representative of the population (based on ONS population estimates). Because of sampling changes in July 2023, some groups in our unweighted sample may be over-represented. Further information on the survey design and quality can be found in our Opinions and Lifestyle Survey Quality and Methodology Information (QMI).