Updated August 2024.
Background
Political parties play a vital role in our democracy, as both voters and candidates can’t possibly have the time to develop in-depth knowledge on every policy area. By generally adhering to defined ideologies, parties make it easier for us all to engage with democracy – even if they are often the subject of public ire. However, despite this essential status, parties face a very uneven playing field in terms of funding, being largely reliant on membership dues and donations.
This massively benefits larger, established parties who are able to count on support from wealthy backers, whilst keeping smaller and newer parties out in the cold. Even worse, leaving party funding at the mercy of the most wealthy opens up the possibility of using that influence to buy policy. An easy solution to this would be to provide a substantial portion of party funding from the public purse. The first of these Ballot Box Briefings takes a look at this thorny issue.
As unappealing as the principle of publicly funding parties may sound to folk in the UK, as with so much else about our politics what we take as a wild idea is actually the norm basically everywhere else in Europe. Most commonly it involves funding based on the number of votes per party at the most recent election or group of elections. Depending on country, additional funds may also be distributed at a flat rate for every eligible party, or to parties which meet requirements for women’s and youth participation, amongst other things.
The UK does have some basic funding for parties in place, but only in support of parliamentary business, not for the general running costs of the parties. It’s also based primarily on seats won, which further benefits those parties already benefiting from the effects of First Past the Post.
Public Support
Given the general public antipathy towards politicians and political parties, you may very well scoff at the idea of public funding for parties. Surely, your average voter would sooner go to jail for tax evasion than fork over any of their hard-earned tax over to political parties? As much as I may believe this a matter of democratic principle, I too would previously have sadly acknowledged it’d likely be a hard sell.
That is until, as part of the BBS/Herald funded Survation poll earlier this year, I explicitly asked what the public thought about party funding: “Political parties in the UK are currently largely funded by private donations, including from wealthy donors. Some other countries provide public funding for political parties based on how many votes they receive at elections, and limit the value of donations individuals can make. Which of the following statements is closest to your view? ” The options for this question were that political parties should:
- … receive some public funding based on the votes they receive, and large donations should be capped
- … be entirely funded based on the votes they receive
- … be wholly funded by private donations
- … receive some public funding based on the votes they receive, but large donations should not be capped
Turns out the public generally think it’s a great idea. A clear majority of 60% of respondents picked one of the options that involves public funding for parties, compared to just 18% who felt parties should be entirely privately funded. In fact, a narrow majority of 51% supported options that would either cap or disallow private donations entirely. Voters may very well be scunnered with political parties, but they’d far rather give them some public cash to operate than see them go cap in hand to wealthy donors who expect policy concessions in return for their largesse.
Proposal
The system proposed in the briefing is a (relatively) simple per-vote annual funding model for parties that achieved at least 1.5% of the vote in either the most recent Holyrood or Westminster election. This mechanism gives a degree of public control over what parties are funded in the sense that if a voter is entirely opposed to funding a particular party, they won’t vote for it.
Both for the simplicity and in recognition that the concept is likely to be instinctively resisted, this suggests a modest figure of (the equivalent of) £1 per vote at whichever of the most recent parliamentary elections had the highest turnout. In reality, given the £1 value was already low when I first published this in 2020, we’d probably want to do at least double that, but it suffices for example purposes. Funding for parties below 1.5% could be pooled into a general pot which new and smaller parties can access under specific circumstances, such as to help print a run of leaflets.
Since Scotland has those two major levels of parliamentary election it makes sense to include the results of both elections in the formula. On the other hand, given only one of the elections is (partly) proportional and there is a degree of turnout difference, it would clearly be unfair to treat them equally. The briefing suggests that the Holyrood List vote should be the primary component of the funding formula, on the basis that as the vote with the most options available to most voters, it’s probably the best reflection of overall support.
As turnout varies, the election with the lower number of votes needs to be “uplifted” such that the number used for the calculation is equal to the number of votes cast at the higher turnout election. It then suggests a figure of 65p per Holyrood vote, and 35p per Westminster vote. Whichever parliament has the vote uplifted will therefore have a higher effective value relative to the actual number of votes.
2024 Figures
Based on the results of the 2024 UK election and the 2021 Scottish election, the annual public funding offered to parties from 2024 would be:
That’d amount to a total expenditure of £2,712,783 which is equivalent to the number of list votes cast in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. That was significantly higher than the number of votes (2,414,810) cast in Scotland for the 2024 UK Parliament Election, giving each Westminster vote an effective value of 39.3p.
The ordering of parties here maps almost to their ranking at Holyrood, though the Lib Dems’ much stronger performance at Westminster gives them a very slight edge over the Greens, who benefit from having more votes at the more “valuable” election. Reform UK likewise outstrip Alba because their solid showing at Westminster more than compensates for their almost non-existence in 2021, whereas Alba only barely crossed the threshold (with 1.7%) in 2021 anyway. Finally, votes for parties below that threshold in both elections would translate to a pool of a bit over £66k.
We can also compare this to what the system would have handed out prior to the 2024 UK general election:
Absolutely no prizes for guessing that the most recent election would take a huge chunk, well over a hundred grand each, out of the allocation for the SNP and Conservatives. Similarly, you wouldn’t be surprised to see big increases in funding for Labour and the Greens. Obviously Reform UK make big gains too since this is the election that would qualify them; their 2021 result being so paltry as to only contribute 5% of their pot.
The opposite is the case for Alba who would get a little bit more cash just from existing in 2024, but only about 14% of their allocation would be via Westminster votes. Finally and more surprisingly might be that the Lib Dems lose a very, very small amount here despite a slight increase in their Westminster vote share; that’s because it went down in terms of raw votes.
The briefing goes into further detail in applying this model to the other parts of the UK, but that’s outwith the scope of this post. Beyond even what’s covered in the briefing, there are other aspects of party financing in the UK that bear consideration. An annual cap on donations from one person is another way to help level the playing field, for example. And in a move that would help boost the presence of parties outside the “Westminster Four” on ballot papers for that parliament, abolishing deposits to stand for election is such a no-brainer that the Electoral Commission itself has long advocated it.
You can read the full Public Funding for Political Parties briefing here.