party funding

Question 1

what are three places party funding can come from?

Answer 1

1. membership
2. donations
3. government

Question 2

what’s short money?

Answer 2

-annual payment given to opposition parties in the house of commons
-to qualify, the opposition party needs at least 2 seats or 1 seat and more than 150,000 votes at the last GE

Question 3

what’s cranborne money? + example

Answer 3

-annual payment given go the TWO main opposition parties in the house of lords
-e.g. over £4000,000 for lib dems 2023/24

Question 4

what are policy development grants? + example

Answer 4

-each year the electoral commission receive £2million from government to allocate to political parties
-first mil = equally allocated between eligible parties
-rest of money is distributed using a formula based on votes etc
-e.g. DUP received almost £400,000 whereas plaid cymru received £132,000
-money is used for parties to develop policies to use in their manifestos

Question 5

private donations explained:

Answer 5

-can come from individuals, businesses or trade unions
-rules enforced by electoral commission to ensure transparency and prevent undue influence
-e.g. in 2000, bernie ecclestone donated £1mil to labour - controversial as labour subsequently chose not to ban tobacco advertising in F1

Question 6

ways funding is limited/ solutions:

Answer 6

1. political parties elections and referendums act 2000
   -created the electoral commission
   -placed limits on campaign spending
   -£30,000 constituency spending limit
   -parties must disclose donations of over £5k nationally and £1k locally to the electoral commission
2. political parties and elections act 2009
   -raised limit for declared donations of £7.5k to party HQ and £1.5k to local party groups
   -gave electoral commission powers to investigate breaches
   -e.g. under cameron, tories were fined £70k for breach of election rules
3. phillips report 2007
   -reccommended greater state funding
   -included £20-25mil of taxpayers’ money to go to funding political parties every year

Question 7

what is a worry of party funding especially within the conservative party?

Answer 7

-majority of their funding comes from big business and rich individuals
-worries that rich donors are able to buy political influence, which is highly undemocratic

Question 8

example of scandal regarding party funding:

Answer 8

-2006-07
-scandal surrounding a possible link with donors to the labour party and them being offered peerages by Blair
-nominations were rejected as there was suspicion that they were only receiving these nominations as they had previously donated

Question 9

PPE contracts scandal:

Answer 9

-during COVID a PPE company medpro which was linked to tory peer michelle moane was offered the government contract and given over £200million
-much of this PPE turned out to be unusable but the party still made a huge profit
-later millions of the company’s profits were transferred to an offshore bank account, which Michelle was the beneficiary of

Question 10

other issues regarding party funding:

Answer 10

-unequal funding can lead to an uneven playing field
-rules regarding party finance can be complex and opaque, which could lead to transparency issues

Question 11

how do labour receive funding from trade unions?

Answer 11

-unions provided 93% of labour’s funding for the 2019 general election
-they can use their financial clout to put pressure on labour e.g. when starmer became leader, the biggest trade union Unite cut finding by 10% after its general secretary expressed concerns about the new direction of labour