Regulating Election Finance: report

The government should bring forward a bill to simplify and consolidate electoral law as has been recommended by the Law Commission.

PPERA should be amended to provide specific clarification that to be a permissible donor, an individual must be on a UK electoral register.

PPERA should be amended to provide that company donations should not exceed net profits after tax generated in the UK within the preceding two years.

PPERA should be amended to require unincorporated associations that meet the threshold for registration with the Electoral Commission to conduct permissibility checks on a relevant donation (that is, money intended for political activity).

The government should amend the law to simplify the disclosure requirements that apply to unincorporated associations. The new rules should provide transparency around political gifts made to unincorporated associations donating more than £25,000 (the current threshold) to political parties in a year. They should also be straightforward to understand and simple to comply with.

The law should be updated so that disclosure requirements apply when unincorporated associations provide donations to candidates, in addition to parties and non-party campaigners.

PPERA should be updated to require parties and non-party campaigners to have appropriate procedures in place to determine the true source of donations. Parties and non-party campaigners should be required to develop a risk-based policy for managing donations, proportionate to the level of risk that they are exposed to.

PPERA should be updated to require political parties to include a statement of risk management in their annual accounts that sets out the risks relating to their sources of funds and the steps taken to manage those risks.

The Electoral Commission should provide detailed guidance to parties and non-party campaigners on how to develop a proportionate risk-based policy on procedures and checks for identifying the true source of a donation.

PPERA should be updated to require all donations over £500 to be donated only through the banking system.

The costs of directly employed staff working on election and referendum campaigns should be included in the spending limits for political parties and referendum campaigners.

All new parties and referendum campaigners should be required to submit a declaration of assets and liabilities over £500 on registration. The declaration should include an estimate of the costs invested in buying or developing the data they hold when they register.

The government should change the law to require parties and campaigners to provide the Electoral Commission with more detailed invoices from their digital suppliers. For targeted adverts this should include the messages used in those campaigns, which parts of the country they were targeted at, and how much was spent on each campaign.

The government should change the law to require parties and campaigners to subdivide their spending returns to record what medium was used for each activity so that more information is available about the money spent on digital campaigns.

The government should legislate to require social media platforms that permit election adverts in the UK to create advert libraries that include specified information.

Social media platforms’ advert libraries should, as a minimum, include all adverts that fit the legal definitions of election campaigning in UK law. Social media platforms should ensure their advert libraries contain the following information: • precise figures for amounts spent, rather than ranges • who paid for the advert • for targeted adverts, information about the intended target audience of the advert and the types of people who actually saw the advert.

In line with the principle of no foreign interference in UK elections, the government should legislate to ban foreign organisations or individuals from buying campaign advertising in the UK.

Reporting deadlines for parties and non-party campaigners spending over £250,000 at a general election or UK referendum should be reduced from six months to four months.

The Electoral Commission should publish election expenditure of parties and non- party campaigners spending over £250,000, within two months of receipt of the full set of spending returns, i.e. within six months of the election or referendum.

Parties and campaigners spending over £250,000 at a general election or UK referendum should submit spending returns to the Electoral Commission in electronic format. Parties and non-party campaigners spending under £250,000 should do so where this is practicable.

Parties should be required to identify what is spent by third parties as targeted spending on their behalf. The government should introduce a specific reporting category for targeted expenditure that non-party campaigners have spent in relation to an authorisation given by a political party.

To increase the information available about third parties in advance of an election, non-party campaigners should be required to disclose the following information when registering with the Electoral Commission: • a brief summary of the purpose of the campaign • geographical location of the campaign • whether it is part of a joint campaign • website address.

The law should be amended to require a specific non-party campaigner register for each election event and to require non-party campaigners to register at each election in which they intend to campaign.

Registered non-party campaigners and referendum campaigners that spend less than the relevant registration threshold should be required to submit a declaration that they have not exceeded the threshold, rather than complete a full spending return.

The government should clarify in legislation the scope of the law on issues-based campaigns. The aim should be to provide campaigners with greater confidence that campaign activity from before an election is called is unlikely to meet the ‘purpose test’ of promoting electoral success if that activity does not focus on candidates or parties and does not mention voting or elections.

The government should change the law to give the Electoral Commission the power to issue codes of practice on key aspects of third-party campaigning.

Criminal offences in PPERA that relate to essentially administrative requirements, such as the late submission of spending returns, should be decriminalised. The government should consult the Electoral Commission to identify those offences which fall into this category.

The Electoral Commission should, as a priority, focus resources on upgrading their website. This should take place in collaboration with interface and user experience professionals so that it is as user friendly as possible.

The Electoral Commission should develop an interactive guidance resource accessible through its website, with online walkthroughs or training modules to explain the legislation and its requirements to parties, campaigners, candidates and interested individuals.

The government should approve the draft statutory codes of practice on campaign expenditure for political parties and candidates, prepared by the Electoral Commission, and lay a copy of the codes before each House of Parliament for approval.

The Electoral Commission should be granted the power to issue statutory codes of practice on any other area of regulation for which it is responsible.

The Electoral Commission should provide clear and authoritative advice that parties and non-party campaigners can rely on. The Commission should seek regular feedback from the Parliamentary Parties Panel and voluntary organisations on the advice it provides to ensure that it meets the needs of those it regulates.

The Electoral Commission’s powers to compel the provision of documents, information and explanation outside of an investigation should be extended to enable the Commission to request information from any person who may hold relevant material that it reasonably requires for the purposes of carrying out its functions.

The Electoral Commission should have new, explicit powers to share information with the police and other regulators such as the Information Commissioner’s Office, where the Commission considers it to be in the public interest.

Electoral Commission investigations under PPERA should be opened within 12 months of the date of the offence being committed or, if later, from the date at which the Electoral Commission first became aware of the circumstances of a potential offence. This period should be capable of being extended on application to a court by up to 12 months in exceptional circumstances and/or where the subject of investigation has caused or contributed significantly to the delay.

There should be a 12-month limit on the duration of Electoral Commission investigations under PPERA. This period should be capable of being extended on application to a court by up to 12 months in exceptional circumstances and/or where the subject of investigation has caused or contributed significantly to the delay. In a case where the Commission goes to court to force a party to comply with an investigation notice, the Commission should have the ability to ask the court to extend the time limit further. The extension would be the period from the first request by the Commission to the date on which the party in question supplies the information.

The maximum fine the Electoral Commission may impose should be increased to 4% of a campaign’s total spend or £500,000, whichever is higher.

The Electoral Commission should be required to provide those it regulates with a clear explanation of the rationale for the size of the sanctions it imposes in individual cases, to improve confidence in the fairness of its decision-making.

The responsibility for granting permission to parties, non-party campaigners and referendum campaigners to pay late invoices or bills from suppliers should be transferred from the courts to the Electoral Commission.

Where leave to pay is granted, the Electoral Commission should have the ability to sanction the late receipt or payment of the claim in order to encourage compliance.

The requirement to receive all invoices within 30 days and pay them within 60 days of polling day should apply only to amounts over £200.

Political parties should be required to provide a pre-election report only if they are standing candidates for election and receive a reportable donation or loan (worth over £7,500) during the pre-election reporting period.

Political parties should be required to submit a PPERA spending return only if they incur regulated PPERA campaign spending.

For uncontested elections, candidates should not be required to submit zero spending returns.

Criminal offences in the RPA that relate to essentially administrative requirements, should be decriminalised and replaced with civil sanctions. The Electoral Commission’s regulatory powers should be expanded to include the enforcement of civil sanctions for candidates.

The Electoral Commission should develop a secure online facility for the submission, certification and publication of candidates’ election expenses returns.

The requirement on returning officers to publish the availability for inspection of candidates’ election expenses returns at all applicable polls, and to publicise outstanding returns in local newspapers, should be revoked and returning officers should be placed under a new obligation to publicise this information on the council website.