On this page, you will find information about candidates' expenses at the 2010 UK Parliamentary general election.
Introduction
Candidates are subject to controls on the election expenses that they can incur in the period before an election. For the 2010 general election there were two regulated periods:
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the "Long Campaign": from the 1 January 2010 to the date that Parliament was dissolved (12 April 2010), and
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the "Short Campaign": from the dissolution of Parliament through to polling day.
The long and short campaigns have a baseline limit of £25,000 and £7,150 respectively, with a top-up of:
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5p per elector in a borough/burgh constituency
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7p per elector in a county constituency.
Candidates are required to submit an expenses return 35 days after the day of the poll to the Returning Officer. Expenses incurred by candidates are separate from political parties' expenditure, reported directly to the Electoral Commission. Please follow the links below to find out more about:
Expenditure summary
The Commission has received copies of returns from 4031 candidates out of the 4150 who stood at the election. This is a return rate of 97%, down slightly from 99% in 2005.
During the "long campaign" period, candidates reported £11.3m in expenditure. During the "short campaign" candidates reported expenditure totalling £14m, down slightly from £14.17m in 2005. The overwhelming majority of candidate expenditure was incurred in England (84.3%), followed by Scotland (8%), Wales (5.3%) then Northern Ireland (2.4%).
Table 1: Candidate expenditure at the UK Parliamentary general elections 1997-2010
| Election year | No. of constituencies |
No. of candidates |
No. of returns submitted | Total long campaign spend | Total short campaign spend | Total expenditure | Avg. spend reported per candidate |
| 1997 | 659 | 3,724 | No record | 0 | 12,929,207 | 12,929,207 | 3,472 |
| 2001 | 659 | 3,319 | No record | 0 | 11,885,785 | 11,885,785 | 3,581 |
| 2005 | 646 | 3,554 | 3,501 | 0 | 14,171,960 | 14,171,960 | 3,988 |
| 2010 | 650 | 4,150 | 4,031 | 11,298,207 | 14,065,542 | 25,363,749 | 3,489 |
Download data on candidates' expenses at the 2010 UK general election
Please download the files below to view information on expenses incurred by candidates at the 2010 UK Parliamentary election. The data provided in these documents is based on the returns submitted to us by Returning Officers. This data was last updated on 17 August 2011.
To view copies of the candidates' expenses return, please contact the relevant Returning Officer or local authority.
Contact us
For questions or requests, please contact the Party and Election Finance Directorate by email (pef@electoralcommission.org.uk) or telephone (020 72710616).
