Parliamentary briefing: Representation of the People Bill – Committee Stage (Part 5 – Enforcement and the Electoral Commission)
Overview
Tuesday 14 April
Part 5 introduces reforms to strengthen the enforcement of the UK’s political finance laws. It would give the Commission powers in line with modern regulatory standards.
- We do not regulate everything to do with elections. Under existing legislation, the Commission regulates political parties, campaigners, members’ associations and elected officials. Currently, there are separate laws in place for candidates, and there are only some instances where the Commission is responsible for regulating them.
- The Commission works closely with law enforcement bodies to regulate those who commit election-related offences where these sit outside of the Commission’s regulatory remit.
- We aim to ensure a trusted and transparent system of regulation in political finance, monitoring and securing compliance, promoting understanding amongst those we regulate and proactively pursuing potential offences or contraventions of the law.
- We provide proactive support to give those we regulate a clear understanding of their responsibilities and how to meet them. We also take enforcement action, including using investigatory powers and sanctions, where we are satisfied enforcement is necessary and proportionate.
- The current regime can be strengthened and improved, and we welcome the more proportionate regulatory toolkit proposed in the Bill. The proposed changes would further ensure a level playing field for all who participate and bring the current regime in line with modern regulatory standards.
Clause 65 and Schedule 10 – Decriminalisation of certain requirements
This clause and schedule would decriminalise certain administrative offences associated with political parties and non-party campaigners. These offences would be subject to civil rather than criminal sanctions
- Decriminalising certain administrative offences would create a more proportionate enforcement system, where legislation targets those actively seeking to evade regulation rather than focusing enforcement efforts on largely administrative offences that could be better addressed through the Commission’s advice or guidance.
- This proposal aims to facilitate broad political participation by reducing the ‘chilling effect’ of criminal sanctions, which may deter volunteers or less experienced individuals from taking on roles such as treasurer or election agent. We know from our engagement with those who take on these responsibilities, that there is a fear of prosecution resulting from inadvertent mistakes related to reporting or filing paperwork.
- It is important to maintain a balance between appropriate criminal sanctions for serious
offences, and civil sanctions for more administrative errors.
Clause 66 and Schedule 11 – Extension of Electoral Commission’s enforcement functions
This clause and schedule would give the Commission responsibility for enforcing electoral finance and imprint offences committed by candidates, local third parties (local non-party campaigners) and recall petition campaigners. The Commission would be able to issue civil sanctions, in line with our existing responsibilities for enforcement relating to political parties and non-party campaigners.
- Under the current regime, individual local police forces and prosecuting authorities are responsible for political finance and imprints offences that relate to candidates, local third parties and recall petitions offences. Enforcement of these offences relies solely on police investigation and criminal prosecution. Criminal prosecution can be seen as disproportionate to the offences so not always taken forward, which can create an‘enforcement gap’.
- Extending the Commission’s enforcement remit to include candidates, local third parties and recall petition campaigners should create a more proportionate and joined-up regime covering the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the Representation of the People Act 1983 and the Recall of MPs Act 2015 and strengthen voters’ trust in the regulatory system.
Clause 67 – Abolition of maximum penalties in respect of offences triable summarily
This clause removes the current limit on the level of fine that the Commission can issue, ahead of secondary legislation being introduced to increase the maximum fine.
- The Commission’s current power to impose a fine of up to £20,000 for political finance offences is outdated and not an effective deterrent. The current maximum civil finewas last updated in 2009 and does not reflect the scale of donations and spending in modern campaigning. Nearly £100million was spent at the 2024 UK parliamentary general election.
- We have long called for the Government to review our enforcement powers, to ensure there are more effective deterrent sanctions and to bring our enforcement tools in line with modern campaign spending and regulatory standards.
- Increasing the maximum fine for political finance offences would better reflect levels of spending in modern campaigning, and more effectively deter non-compliance. It would give voters increased confidence that serious offences are proportionately sanctioned.
Key considerations
- The Commission recommends that the maximum civil fine for political finance offences should be increased to £500,000, in line with the fine for offences at Scottish referendums. This would support a more proportionate and effective sanctions regime that would better reflect the risk of harm to public trust and confidence from offences, and better reflect the increasingly large sums of money involved in campaigning in the UK.
- Any fine imposed by the Commission would continue to be applied in line with the important principle of proportionality, based on the facts of each situation, as set out in our statutory enforcement policy
Clause 69 – Disclosure of information by Electoral Commission
This clause introduces a prescribed list of entities to whom the Commission can disclose information for the purpose of assisting in their regulatory functions.
Amendments grouped for debate with Clause 69:
- NC39 [Opp] would require the Secretary of State to consult on how to enhance
information sharing to minimise the risk of foreign interference in political donations.
Information sharing
- The Commission is currently limited in its express statutory powers to share and receive information with other entities. This contrasts with other regulators and public agencies and creates unnecessary complexity and delay in our compliance and enforcement work.
- Improving our ability to exchange information would allow closer and more efficient collaboration with other regulators and enforcement authorities and in some cases could help detect and prevent foreign interference.
- The clauses included in this Bill would expand the Commission’s existing regulatory remit, including ensuring compliance with new know your donor requirements for example. Enhancing our information gathering and sharing powers would strengthen our ability to ensure compliance with the new extended regime.
Information gathering
- We have powers to obtain information from regulated entities relating to their income and expenditure. We can exercise these powers outside of a formal investigation.
- The clauses expand the Commission’s existing regulatory remit and strengthen our ability to ensure compliance with the regime. For example, the implementation of section 54A PPERA declarations and know-your-donor risk assessments. The expansion of our information gathering powers would provide an additional important regulatory tool.
- We recommend extending our information gathering powers to include a power to compel information, documents and explanation from any entity that we reasonably require for the purposes of carrying out our functions. This recommendation has also been echoed in the Rycroft Review (recommendation 10).
Key considerations
- Clause 69 introduces a prescribed list of entities with whom the Commission can share information for the purpose of assisting them in their regulatory functions. New entities can be added via secondary legislation. Restricting our information sharing powers to a prescribed list of entities has the potential to overlook certain entities, or exclude new entities. Any alterations to a prescribed list would also require legislative change, which would take time. A broader discretionary power granting the Commission autonomy to determine which entities we exchange information with would be more efficient.
- The Rycroft Review into countering foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics has recommended that the information-sharing powers of the Commission should be extended, so that we can not only share information with other agencies but also require information of them. It also recommended that the powers of the Commission should be extended to allow us to require information from any person or organisation who may hold relevant material that we reasonably require for the purposes of carrying out our functions. These recommendations would significantly enhance our ability to enforce the UK’s political finance laws, if they were to be included in the Bill.