Funding

Question 1

How are most political parties funded?

Answer 1

• public funding, donations, loans and membership fees

Question 2

what have reform proposals done?

Answer 2

have focused a cap on donations and an increase in public funding

Question 3

What was funding like before the labour government in the 1990s?

Answer 3

• labour’s funding came fees paid by trade unions and other affiliated organisations
• the conservative party was said to be bankrolled by wealthy interests

Question 4

what are the controversy surrounding funding?

Answer 4

the rise of individual donations to political parties in the 1990s led to the perception that access to political influence could be easily brought
i.e Bernie Ecclestone’s £1 million donation to the labour party in 1997 may have led to the subsequent delays in the introduction of the ban on tobacco advertising in formula one motor racing

Question 5

What is the political parties, elections and referendums act (PPERA 2000)

Answer 5

• this imposed an overall spending limit on party spending in general election campaigns (£30,000 per constituency)
• established additional spending limits on devolved powers and required all donations over £5,000 to the electoral commission
• this made parties led reliant on individual backers

Question 6

what was PPERA 2009

Answer 6

• imposed tighter regulations on spending by candidates on the run up to elections
• this allowed the electoral commission to investigate cases, impose fines, restricting donations from non EU residents

Question 7

What did the 2007 Philips report in strengthening democracy say about funding for political parties

Answer 7

one way forward would be greater state funding perhaps through pence-per voter or pence-by-member funding formula

Question 8

How long has state funding been around?

Answer 8

Since the policy development grants established under section 12 of PPERA, short money and cranbone money

Question 9

what is cranbone money

Answer 9

funds paid to opposition parties in the house of lords in order to help them cover their administrative costs and thereby provide proper scrutiny of the government. LG received £572,717 in Cranborne money

Question 10

what is short money

Answer 10

funds paid to opposition parties in order to help them cover administrative costs and thereby provide proper scrutiny of the government. This is available to all opposition parties that win two seats or a single seat whilst also securing 150,000 votes nationally
in 2014-2015 labour received £6,684,794 in short money.