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The Electoral Commission has today published a case summary of a review conducted into the election expenses of Chris Huhne MP for the 2010 General Election. 

The Commission reviewed Mr Huhne’s election expense return following an allegation that Mr Huhne had under-declared his expenses on the return. The Representation of the People Act 1983 (RPA) limits candidate campaign expenditure.

Under the RPA candidates and agents are required to submit a return detailing expenses incurred in the campaign and a statement confirming the return is complete and accurate.

Under the RPA candidates’ spending is limited for both the ‘short campaign period’ and the ‘long campaign period’. 

Mr Huhne reported spending of £18,608.56 for the long campaign against a limit of £28,874.80 and £10,911.05 for the short campaign against a limit of £11,024.80.

The Commission considered four areas of the return signed by Mr Huhne and his agent Anne Winstanley:

• Costs associated with unsolicited materials sent to electors.
• National party expenses referred to in Mr Huhne’s return which did not appear in the party’s campaign expenditure report.
• Costs in relation to Mr Huhne’s website.
• Costs in relation to campaign staff.

The Commission’s conclusions from the case review are:

• Mr Huhne’s website costs for the short campaign were in our view slightly underreported. They should have been reported as £45.15 rather than £35. Even if the website costs had been reported in accordance with our calculations, the total expenditure for Mr Huhne's campaign would still have been within the spending limit.
• The allocation of spending to the national campaign rather than Mr Huhne’s personal election campaign is in our view reasonable and in line with Electoral Commission guidance. However the campaign expenditure return submitted in November 2010 by the Liberal Democrats for their national campaign at the general election did not include any of the expenditure reported as national spending by Ms Winstanley. The Commission have written to the Liberal Democrat national party asking them to review their procedures and report back to the Commission measures they will implement to avoid a repeat of this in future.
• The review identified that some of the letters sent out by Mr Huhne had an incorrect imprint in respect of the name of the printer only. The imprint correctly identified the promoter of the material and the person on whose behalf they were being published.  The Commission has written to Mr Huhne and Ms Winstanley about the importance of ensuring that imprints on future election material are accurate.

On the basis of the evidence considered the Commission do not believe that further action is required.

• The full summary of the Commission’s case review into Chris Huhne’s election expenses can be found here (PDF) 

Ends

For more information please contact
Electoral Commission press office on 0207 271 0704
Out of hours 07789 920414

Notes to Editors

1. The Electoral Commission is an independent body set up by the UK Parliament.  Our aim is integrity and public confidence in the UK’s democratic process.  We regulate party and election finance and set standards for well-run elections.
2. The Commission provided guidance for candidates and agents on how to determine what counts as election spending and how it should be reported, see: www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/83337/UKPGE-C-and-A-Final-web.pdf  
3. The long campaign period began on 1 January 2010 and ended on the date Parliament was dissolved, 12 April. The short campaign period began on 13 April 2010 and ended on the date of the poll, 6 May 2010.