Electoral law allows parties to adopt a fundraising strategy that focusses on raising funds in small amounts. A positive aspect of this is broad engagement of people in politics.<\/p>
Parliament set a threshold of £500, above which donations must be from permissible sources. This is to limit influence from outside the UK on our elections and democracy. Below the threshold, sums given to parties and campaigners are not considered to be donations under law, but recipients still need to satisfy themselves who is giving these sums. Multiple sums from a single source could aggregate to above £500 triggering the permissibility rules. This would exclude overseas donors not on the UK electoral register.<\/p>
Parties must have systems in place to comply with the rules, and the Commission provides advice to parties and campaigners about how to ensure that they do. If the current law is complied with, there is no reason why micro funding would result in impermissible donations from overseas donors. However, if it is considered that confidence in this needs to be improved by more transparency, the level of the £500 threshold could be lowered by Parliament.<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4046", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Bridget Phillipson"} } , "answeringMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Houghton and Sunderland South"} , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Bridget Phillipson"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2019-06-24", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2019-06-24T09:58:46.777Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "36"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2019-06-17", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "hansardHeading" : {"_value" : "Political Parties: Finance"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25259", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Commons"} } ], "questionText" : "To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, whether the Electoral Commission plans to review the ability of UK political parties and campaigns to receive micro-funding from overseas donors.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4264", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Stephen Doughty"} } , "tablingMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Cardiff South and Penarth"} , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "Stephen Doughty"} ], "uin" : "911478"} , {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/resources/694271", "AnsweringBody" : [{"_value" : "Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission"} ], "answer" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/resources/694271/answer", "answerText" : {"_value" : "
As part of its work to encourage people to register to vote, the Electoral Commission runs multi-media advertising campaigns before electoral events. Its most recent campaign led up to the voter registration deadline ahead of the Northern Ireland Assembly election scheduled for Thursday 2 March.<\/p>
Online advertising is one of several channels used by the Commission and includes a number of elements, including \u2018display\u2019 advertising, whereby the Commission\u2019s voter registration advertising appears on a wide range of websites, including various news media outlets, which voters are likely to visit for information on elections or about political interests. In order to achieve a breadth of coverage, the Commission often use the Google Display Network (GDN) which is a system run by Google that enables advertisers to place online banner ads across a wide range of news, blogs and other websites, and is a commonly used method for publicly-funded campaigns. They brief media buying agencies to purchase space on the GDN based on the audiences they want to reach. The algorithms that sit behind the GDN will automatically identify the most appropriate websites for ads to appear on, based on the audience visiting those sites. This is a cost-effective way to purchase advertising space and to ensure that a diversity of voters see messages multiple times \u2013 ads for the campaign in Northern Ireland appeared on more than 5,000 websites.<\/p>
Historical data on individual website spending for all previous campaigns within the last three years is not held by the Commission. However, the Commission can confirm that as part of the recent campaign in Northern Ireland, the Commission\u2019s spend relating to Breitbart News totals £19.51. This equates to 0.7% of the Commission\u2019s overall advertising spend with the GDN in that campaign, and a total media budget for the campaign of £140,000 which included TV, press, billboard, radio and social media advertising.<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4046", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Bridget Phillipson"} } , "answeringMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Houghton and Sunderland South"} , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Bridget Phillipson"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2017-03-01", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2017-03-01T17:38:39.643Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "36"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2017-02-24", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "hansardHeading" : {"_value" : "Electoral Commission: Advertising"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25259", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Commons"} } ], "questionText" : "To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, what the Commission's policy is on online advertising; and how much was spent on online advertising with (a) Breitbart News and (b) each other outlet in each of the last three years.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4264", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Stephen Doughty"} } , "tablingMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Cardiff South and Penarth"} , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "Stephen Doughty"} ], "uin" : "65501"} ], "itemsPerPage" : 10, "page" : 0, "startIndex" : 1, "totalResults" : 2, "type" : ["http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#ListEndpoint", "http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#Page"]} }