Briefing on Representation of the People Bill: Commons Second Reading
Monday 2 March
This briefing highlights key considerations on the introduction of the Representation of the People Bill. It outlines our position on its key measures.
The Electoral Commission is the independent body which oversees elections and regulates political finance in the UK. We promote public confidence in the democratic process and ensure its integrity, and we support participation in elections through our public awareness and democratic education work. A key part of our role is to advise Parliament on legislation relating to elections and the regulation of political finance.
We will continue to provide independent advice to parliamentarians on the contents of the bill, based on published evidence and our expertise. This will include more detailed information on individual clauses during the bill’s passage through Parliament.
Once the bill has been passed into law, we will work with voters, electoral administrators, political parties and campaigners to ensure everyone involved in elections understands and is prepared for the changes
Our view on the bill
The Representation of the People Bill has the potential to significantly improve the electoral system for voters, parties, campaigners and administrators. Changes to voter registration and political finance rules will bring particular benefits. Lowering the voting age will give around 1.7 million additional people the right to vote.
These reforms should strengthen the resilience and integrity of our electoral system, tackle many of the threats it faces and improve how elections work for those who participate.
While we welcome many of the changes set out in the bill, some provisions could be strengthened further to improve the experience for voters and better protect the system from foreign interference.
Automated voter registration systems should be implemented in time for the next general election. We think the timetable for automatic registration will not deliver benefits for voters before the next general election. The successful pilots in Wales last year show this is possible.
We are concerned that using revenue to determine companies’ eligibility to donate to political parties is an inadequate safeguard against foreign money. Using profit would more clearly reflect genuine UK-based activity. The current clauses appear to allow a company to donate its entire revenue to each candidate and party – so many times over each year.
Public confidence in elections also depends on the system being fair, transparent and independent. For that reason, we remain opposed to the Strategy and Policy Statement introduced by the Elections Act 2022. It will continue to make the case for non-partisan accountability to Parliament.
We will work with the UK Government to support effective implementation of the bill, supporting voters, political parties, campaigners and candidates, and electoral administrators to prepare for and manage the changes.
Any change to the electoral system should improve the experience for voters, be workable, and improve the system’s security and accessibility. It is a crucial principle that changes to any electoral legislation should be clear at least six months before they are due to be implemented or complied with.
Part 1: Young voters
Part 1 of the bill extends the right to vote to 16 and 17 year olds for elections to the UK Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly and to local elections in England and Northern Ireland.
Young voters
Extending the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds will give around 1.7m additional people the right to vote. It would align the voting age with devolved elections in Scotland and Wales, where 16- and 17-year-olds already have the right to vote.
Although we don't take a view on the principle of franchise changes, which are significant constitutional questions for Parliament to consider, all those who are eligible to vote in elections should be able to do so freely and without barriers. Currently, 16- and 17-year-olds are the group least likely to be on the electoral register.
Our priority will be to ensure that all newly enfranchised voters know how to register and exercise their right to vote, to have access to educational material through their schools, colleges and communities, and to support the electoral community to deliver franchise changes effectively.
Research across several countries and states that have lowered their voting ages shows that when enfranchised, 16 and 17-year-olds tend to vote in greater numbers than those enfranchised at 18. 16 and 17-year-olds can already vote in Scottish Parliament elections, Senedd elections, and local elections in Scotland and Wales.
Extending the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds increases the importance of equipping young people with the confidence to participate, so that they can continue to do so into the future. Our research shows that most young people support learning more about politics and elections:
- 72% of young people think children and young people should learn more about politics in school/college
- 53% of young people want to learn more about what difference their vote makes
We will build on our democratic education work to improve young people’s understanding of electoral systems, expanding our work to provide teachers and students with resources and support to deliver democratic education.
Key considerations
- As recommended by the Curriculum and Assessment review, the curriculum should be changed to help prepare young people to cast their vote confidently. All children should have the opportunity to participate in democratic education throughout their time in school.
- Changes to the voting age also need to be implemented in a way which carefully manages the pressures on election teams.
- Implementing automated or automatic registration and including forms of voter ID more likely to be held by younger voters would help ensure young people are registered and able to vote once enfranchised.
Part 2: Registration of voters
Part 2 of the bill introduces changes to enable automated or direct registration.
Automatic or direct registration
Having complete and accurate registers is fundamental to democratic participation – if voters are not correctly registered, they cannot participate. Our research shows that as many as 8 million people across the UK are not correctly registered to vote.
The requirement to submit an application to be registered can be a barrier to some, and we know that some groups of people are less likely to be registered correctly: attainers and other young people, people who live in private rented accommodation, disabled people, and recent home-movers.
The bill includes provisions that would enable automatic or direct registration. When commenced, these would impose a duty on electoral registration officers to register voters without requiring them to submit registration applications. An automated registration process would remove barriers for voters and make it easier to register and vote.
The Government is exploring several options for more automated forms of voter registration. These range from integrated registration – where applications for other services, such as obtaining a passport or driving licence, are used to prompt users to register to vote – to automatic registration, where individuals are added to the register without having to opt in.
While the final version of automatic registration may take longer, we assess that significant progress can be made on integrated and some automatic registration implementation before the next general election, adding millions to the electoral register accurately, and in particular helping add new 16- and 17-year-old voters to the register. Successful pilots in Wales last year show how effective this can be.
We are urging the Government to work quickly to introduce automated systems to enable voters to be added to UK parliamentary electoral registers, in time for the next general election. This could be built on existing services, such as applying for a passport, updating a driving licence, or receiving a National Insurance Number at 16.
We will independently evaluate automatic or direct registration pilots and continue to provide support and guidance to Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), who under these proposals would continue to be responsible for compiling and maintaining the electoral registers throughout the year.
We also currently run public awareness campaigns to promote voter registration ahead of elections. We will continue to do this, adapting our campaign approach to ensure it reflects the final registration model and accounting for possible divergence across the UK.
Key considerations
- Implementing automated and automatic registration systems will help reduce the large number of eligible voters unregistered, as shown in countries around the world. Recent pilots in Wales successfully identified and added just over 14,500 new voters to registers, including a significant number of attainers – with high accuracy.
Part 3: Conduct of elections
Part 3 of the bill makes several changes to how elections are conducted, including expanding the list of IDs accepted at polling stations to include bank cards, making changes to absent voting and candidate nomination processes, and changes intended to address candidate security at elections.
Expanding the list of accepted voter ID
The 2024 general election was the first at which voters were required to show photo ID when voting in polling stations, and most people were able to vote successfully. Our research found:
- fewer than 0.1% of people in Great Britain who tried to vote at a polling station were unable to because they could not present an accepted form of ID
- around 4% of people who did not vote said that the requirement to show ID was a factor
- that the requirement to show voter ID affected some people more than others, particularly people from a disadvantaged background.
We recommended that the Government review the list of accepted IDs and the way the voter authority certificate is issued, including whether there could be a later deadline to apply for a digitally-issued VAC. We also recommended that options for voters without accepted ID – such as attestation or ‘vouching’ – be considered.
The bill proposes expanding the list of ID accepted at polling stations to include bank cards as a non-photo form of ID for elections in Great Britain, to enable a digital voter authority certificate to be provided, and to allow digital versions of ID to be accepted at polling stations.
We will inform voters of any changes to accepted forms of ID, and continue to communicate when they need to show ID and how they can apply for a voter authority certificate as an alternative. We will support electoral administrators and polling station staff in managing the voter ID verification process.
Bank cards as voter ID
Allowing voters to show bank cards as a form of ID is less secure than the current requirements, where voters need to show photo ID at polling stations. Because bank cards do not include a photo and sometimes do not include a full name, they make it harder for polling station staff to verify a person’s identity. There are communities across the UK where several people with the same name and initial live at the same address.
It will also require staff to have a different way of checking ID because there is no common format, design or validation feature for bank cards, which is the case for other forms of ID.
Digital ID and voter authority certificates
Adding digital ID to vote at a polling station would give voters more flexibility and options for proving their identity. Digital Voter Authority Certificates (voter ID) would also improve access for voters without other forms of ID if local councils issue them closer to polling day.
Key considerations
- Introducing bank cards as voter ID will weaken security. This is because bank cards do not have a photo, and sometimes do not include a full name, so it is harder for polling station staff to verify a person’s identity. There are communities across the UK where several people with the same name and initial live at the same address.
- We have previously recommended introducing ‘vouching’ or attestation at polling stations. Canada uses ‘vouching’ at its federal elections. It allows registered voters with an accepted form of ID to vouch for someone who does not have accepted ID . As a result, it keeps a link with a named voter who can prove their ID.
- The changes would also introduce significant differences between the requirements in Northern Ireland and those in Great Britain, which could cause voter confusion.
Further reading
Measures to improve candidate security
Further provisions relating to candidate security are in Part 6 of the bill. The Commission’s wider views are set out in the relevant section of the briefing.
Part 3 of the bill proposes some key changes to improve the security of candidates. It removes the requirement to publish candidates’ home addresses, allowing them to protect themselves by choosing not to have their personal information shared in a way that could make them vulnerable to abuse.
Removing the requirement in Northern Ireland for a poll clerk to shout out the name and number of everyone to whom they deliver a ballot paper helps to protect voters from potentially unwelcome or intimidatory behaviour.
The bill also makes provision for candidates to complete and return a ‘police contact form’ with their nomination papers, so that the candidate can be contacted by the police in connection with matters relating to the candidate’s safety. Ahead of the May 2026 elections, we have introduced candidate contact forms in nomination packs to support the sharing of candidate details between returning officers and the relevant police contacts.
Changes to the nominations process
Under current rules, a candidate must complete a set of nomination papers and sign a declaration of truth that the details they have provided are accurate. There is no requirement for a candidate to show ID as part of this, but it is an offence to provide a false statement on nomination papers.
The 2024 general election presented new challenges to the nomination system, with reports of alleged fake candidates and multiple candidates of the same name. We recommended strengthening the process requirements to deter candidates from misleading voters about their true identities.
The bill makes a number of changes to the nominations process. It proposes requiring that the nomination paper be accompanied by prescribed documents providing evidence of the candidate’s identity. It introduces a new statutory declaration form that the candidate has not provided false information on their nomination.
Part 3 also enables parties to withdraw support from a candidate up to 48 hours before the end of the nominations period and amends key deadlines for the nominations process.
We will support Returning Officers to manage changes in the nominations process, and update guidance for candidates and agents to reflect these changes.
Key considerations
- Changes to the nominations process need to strike a balance between accessibility and workability, and where burdens lie (for example, burdens on candidates/agents, and those on Returning Officers). We think these do, and will help prevent some of the problems identified in the past.
Absent voting
More than 1.3 million people applied to vote by post at the 2024 general election. While most postal votes were received on time, some postal voters did not receive their ballot packs in time to complete and return them before polling day.
We recommended improvements to the postal voting system to improve the service for voters, including considering whether the deadlines allow sufficient time to process postal votes.
The bill moves the deadline for applying for a postal vote from 11 working days before the poll to 14 working days, makes provision for Returning Officers to issue replacement postal votes from after the application deadline, and allows voters to cancel their postal vote to vote in person or via emergency proxy
Key considerations
- Other forms of early or flexible voting could give voters further alternatives to postal or proxy voting. We have carried out feasibility studies on whether potential alternatives, like advance voting or mobile voting in places like care homes, could work for elections in the UK. The Government is currently piloting and testing some of these measures.
Part 4: Campaigns and political expenditure
Part 4 of the bill introduces several reforms to the political finance system. We have recommended some of these changes since 2013 to strengthen the system, particularly from foreign interference.
Company donations
Currently, if a company wants to donate to a UK political party or campaigner, they need to be registered at Companies House and be operating in some way in the UK, not just registered on paper. This could involve selling goods or services, having customers, maintaining an office or staff, or actively trading in the UK.
This means that currently, companies can make political donations even when they haven’t generated enough money in the UK to fund it. This opens the system to donations funded from activity overseas.
The government has proposed new controls on company donations. There would be a limit on donations from companies, based on their revenue, that applies separately to each recipient. This means a company could donate an amount equal to their revenue to a party and then donate the same amount to each of the party’s MPs, councillors and candidates. This would allow companies to make legitimate donations many times their revenue, with no guarantee of the source of these funds.
To be at all effective, the revenue limit must apply to the total value of all of a company’s political donations in a calendar year, regardless of the number of recipients. This could be achieved through a donor declaration, with minimal administrative burden. We have no evidence that companies will struggle to track the donations they make in a year.
Limiting donations by companies to the total amount of profit they have made and paid tax on in the UK would provide much stronger protection against foreign interference and greater assurance for voters.
Key considerations
- To more effectively prevent foreign money from entering the system, we recommend that a company’s profit be used as the measure of its UK earnings, rather than revenue.
- Using profit as a measure guarantees that a company has made enough money in the UK to cover the donations it makes. Revenue provides no such guarantee, as it may not translate into any money retained by the company after costs.
- Under the current proposals, company donations would effectively remain uncapped. The only limit to a company’s ability to donate would be the number of different donees it can find which will accept its money.
- These provisions would not reduce the risk of foreign money entering British politics through companies. They do not sufficiently close the current loophole, as it means companies could still donate more money overall than they have made in the UK.
'Know your donor’ checks
Political parties, candidates and campaigners are responsible for ensuring donations made to them are from permissible sources.
The introduction of ‘know your donor’ checks would require parties and campaigners to carry out a more rigorous assessment of the donations they receive. Such checks would give parties and campaigners greater confidence when deciding whether to accept donations.
For example, parties and campaigners would need to take steps to ensure they know the true source of the money an organisation or individual is donating. Such checks have existed for some time in charity law.
These new requirements should be introduced in a way that recognises the need for proportionality and limits the administrative burden on those accepting donations.
We recommend adding location to the list of risk factors that a party should consider. So they should also look at the location of the donor – where in the world they are based. Parties may have further ideas, based on their existing experience of checking donations.
Key considerations
- 'Know your donor' checks should be proportionate and workable, to avoid placing an administrative burden on donees. The thresholds at which a risk assessment is required should be changed so that the regime is sensitive to the varying levels of risk faced by different donees. The Government should consult with the regulated community over which factors should be considered in such a risk assessment.
Unincorporated associations
Unincorporated associations are associations of individuals who have joined together to carry out a shared purpose.
We have highlighted weaknesses in the unincorporated associations regime for many years. Currently, they are not required to verify donor eligibility, and there is no bar to individuals outside the UK being members of an unincorporated association. This means they could make legitimate donations using funding from otherwise impermissible sources, including overseas.
Changes proposed in the bill would prevent unincorporated associations which are subject to reporting requirements from making political donations funded by impermissible donors.
The bill’s provisions would also improve transparency around the funding of unincorporated associations - meaning they will need to register and start reporting the money they receive once they hit a threshold of £11,180 and report any gifts over £2,230.
Key considerations
- This is a key and proportionate change to the system.
Part 5: Enforcement and the Electoral Commission
Part 5 of the bill introduces reforms to strengthen the enforcement of the UK’s political finance laws.
Candidate enforcement regime
Currently, individual police forces and prosecuting authorities are responsible for investigating and enforcing alleged political finance offences by election candidates. Criminal investigations and prosecutions may, in some cases, be disproportionate to the severity of the alleged offences. This can mean that prosecutions are not always taken forward, leading to an enforcement gap. The threat of criminal sanctions also deters people from standing for office or acting as an agent.
The bill would give responsibility for investigating and enforcing certain political finance offences relating to candidates and local third-party campaigners to us, rather than the police. These offences would be subject to civil sanctions (for example, a fine or an enforcement undertaking) rather than criminal sanctions, which could lead to imprisonment and a criminal record.
Key considerations
- Extending our remit to include enforcement of the rules for candidates and local third-party campaigners would create a more proportionate, effective and joined-up regime covering both the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act and the Representation of the People Act.
Decriminalising administrative offences
In 2013, we recommended that criminal offences that relate to essentially administrative requirements should be reframed as purely civil.
Decriminalising administrative offences would create a more proportionate enforcement system, where legislation targets those actively seeking to evade regulation rather than focusing enforcement efforts on low-level offences that could be better addressed through our advice or guidance.
Key considerations
- This proposal aims to reduce the ‘chilling effect’ which may deter volunteers or less experienced individuals from taking on roles such as treasurer or election agent due to fear of criminal prosecution resulting from inadvertent mistakes related to reporting or filing paperwork.
A more effective and proportionate regulatory toolkit
We have a number of powers to enable us to apply a proportionate enforcement approach. Still, there are areas for improvement to support a stronger, simpler and streamlined regulatory system.
The bill proposes providing us with more proportionate regulatory tools, including increasing the maximum fine for political finance offences and improving how we share information.
Currently, the maximum civil fine for breaches of political finance law is £20,000. This was last updated in 2009 and does not reflect the scale of donations and spending in modern campaigning, which can involve almost a hundred million pounds for the largest political parties.
Improving how we share information with other organisations would allow closer collaboration. This would cover how we share information with the police and other regulators to support their functions. It would allow us to work with partners more efficiently
Key considerations
- Increasing the maximum civil fine for political finance offences to £500,000, in line with the fine for offences at Scottish referendums, would support a more proportionate and effective sanctions regime that would better deter non-compliance.
Part 6: Hostility towards candidates
Part 6 of the bill introduces several provisions to address hostility towards candidates.
Candidate security
There has been a worrying rise in the abuse and intimidation of candidates in recent years. This has a significant impact on individuals and can deter those considering standing, thereby limiting the diversity of candidates and choices for voters.
At the 2024 general election, we found that over half (55%) of candidates felt they had experienced some harassment, intimidation or abuse. Women were twice as likely, and ethnic minority respondents three times as likely, to report serious abuse.
The bill proposes adding a statutory aggravating factor in sentencing for certain election-related offences where they are motivated by hostility, and extends disqualification orders to include offences against electoral staff. This reflects the seriousness of these offences and should help deter potential offenders from engaging in abusive behaviour.
We support candidates, campaigners and parties to understand what constitutes abuse and where to go if they experience it. We are currently considering how a code of conduct for campaigning, as recommended by the Speaker’s Conference, can facilitate a robust but respectful campaigning environment.
We will continue to work closely with partners, including the police, to provide support in tackling allegations of abuse. We will work with the Government to update guidance for police, electoral administrators and candidates on the safety and security of elections.
Key considerations
- We strongly welcome these provisions.
- Further changes may be needed to improve candidate safety, beyond the measures in the bill. Social media platforms must do more to remove abusive content and develop improved screening tools to identify perpetrators.
- We recommend that the Government consider creating a clearer new overarching duty on platforms operating in the UK to cover a wider range of risks to elections, to ensure they take action to mitigate risks and protect legitimate political debate, particularly during critical election periods. This would help provide clarity and a shared understanding of the actions platforms are required to take during elections, and provide a clearer basis for Ofcom to take enforcement action if those actions are not taken.
- Democratic education must also play a part in tackling abuse by reforming citizenship education to prepare young people to participate in democracy.