Regulating Election Finance: report
The Committee on Standards in Public Life has published its report on the regulation of election finance.
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The Committee has today published its report and recommendations to government on the regulation of election finance.
Our report focuses on practical proposals that seek to modernise and reform aspects of the regime.
We recommend tightening the requirement to identify the true source of donations and reduce the potential for foreign money to influence UK elections. We also make recommendations to increase voter access to information about how money is spent at elections and referendums in the age of digital campaigning. We look at the issue of non-party campaigning and what changes can be made to improve regulation in this area.
A main area of focus is on compliance with the law. Criminal sanctions remain necessary for serious breaches, such as deliberate attempts to circumvent the system. However, where there has been a breach of the rules as the result of an inadvertent error, we believe a civil sanction is the more appropriate route.
This is why we have proposed a package of recommendations to enhance the civil sanctions regime. These include the decriminalisation of criminal offences that relate to essentially administrative requirements; extending the civil sanctions regime to include candidate finance laws (to end the cliff edge for candidates where the only enforcement action that can be taken is either criminal prosecution or nothing); and new time limits for Electoral Commission investigations to encourage timely enforcement action. There are also recommendations to improve provision of guidance and advice.
Together, the recommendations we have made in this report will deliver significant improvements to the current framework for regulating election finance, creating a more transparent, proportionate and effective system.