Funding - rules

Party finance review post-1997 Ecclestone Affair

• Labour comissioned review of party finance by Committee on the Standards in Public Life

• Proposals adopted in the 2002 PPERA

2002 - Political Parties, Elections and Referenda Act - regulation, more money and establishment of EC

• Regulated donations and spending

  • Increased funding transparency

    • Donations >£500 have to be declared

    • Donations >£7,500 have to be placed on electoral register

  • Election spending capped at £30,000 per constituency to stop parties trying to outspend each other

  • Prevented foreign donations (those not on the UK electoral roll)

• More money:

  • Introduced Policy Development Grant

  • Increased amount of Short money (then decreased by £3.6bn and increased in transparency by 2016 Cons govt)

• Established Electoral Commission that oversees laws relating to party finance

Electoral Commission

• All parties must submit publicly available audited annual accounts

• All donations >£7,500 must be declared to the EC and made public

2009 - Political Parties and Elections Act

• Gave EC power to investigate and impose fines

• Restriction of donations from non-UK residents

• Tighter regulations in run-up to elections

2016 - Labour’s fining by the EC

• Labour Party fined £20,000 by EC for breaching finance rules

• Launched after £7614 missing from election returns for costs of Ed Miliband’s tombstone

  • Identified 24 other undeclared expenses - £109,777

• EC wanted to increase £20,000 penalty to be more inline with spending and donations of parties

2017 - Tory fining by EC

• Cons Party fined £70,000 by EC due to breaches in expenses reporting in 2015 GE

• EC found failure to report £104,765 of campaign expenses and incorrect reporting of £118,124