Control of Political Donations and Expenditure, Provisions Relating to an Independent Candidate – Sections 362 to 379
Part 14 of the Act requires a company to be authorised by its members before it makes a political donation in excess of £5000 in one year to a political party, political organisation or an independent candidate (who is not a member of a political party but standing for election to public office).
A company must also be authorised by its members before it incurs expenditure in respect of political activities such as advertising, promotion or otherwise supporting a political party, political organisation pr an independent candidate in an election.
The implementation is as follows:
In relation to political parties and other political and other political organisations the requirement for authorisation was implemented:
- In GB from 01/10/07
- In Northern Ireland from 01/11/07
However this did not apply to donations or expenditure relating to independent candidates. For independent candidates implementation is from 01/10/08 and applies to both NI and GB.
The 1st October 2008 implementation simply extends, to independent candidates, the control of political donations and expenditure by companies that already applied to political parties and organisations from last year.
