Non-party campaigners: UK Parliamentary general elections

Attributing your spending

If you are a registered non-party campaigner, there are requirements in law on how your spending must be attributed to:

  • parliamentary constituencies
  • parts of the UK

We refer to these as the ‘attribution rules’. The purpose of the attribution rules is to assign your spending on regulated campaign activity to each part of the UK and each constituency in which it has an effect.

The spending attributed to each part of the UK counts towards the spending limit for that part. The spending attributed to each constituency counts towards the spending limit for that constituency. All spending will count towards the limits for at least one part of the UK and at least one constituency.

You should first identify where your spending has an effect. A campaign may be made up of multiple items of spending whose effect is limited to particular constituencies or parts of the UK. For example, a leafleting campaign across multiple constituencies where you know the amount spent on delivering leaflets in each constituency. Where possible, you should identify and split up items of spending whose effect is limited to separate areas.

You must then apply the attribution rules below.

Constituencies

You must split your spending equally between all constituencies in which it has an effect.1  For instance, you must attribute spending on a UK-wide campaign equally to each of the UK's 650 constituencies.

If you are campaigning across the whole of one part of the UK, you must attribute spending equally to each constituency in that part.2

If you spend the entire limit on constituency campaigning in a particular constituency, you will breach the constituency spending limit if you then incur any other regulated campaign activity that must be attributed to that constituency.

Parts of the UK

You must split your spending between the parts of the UK in which your spending has effect:

  • If your spending only has effect in one part of the UK, you must attribute it to that part.3
  • If your spending has effect in more than one part of the UK, you must attribute it to each part in proportion to how many constituencies there are in each part.4

The constituencies used are those that will be in place at the next general election. The number of constituencies in each part of the UK are as follows:

Part of UKNumber of constituencies5
England543
Scotland57
Wales32
Northern Ireland18
Total650
Last updated: 30 January 2024