of political donations now come from the ultra-wealthy
Donations like these can be used to buy access, influence and even seats in the House of Lords.
Our politics is not for sale. It's time for MPs to do right for their communities and take big money out of our politics.
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The Problem
A decade ago, only 1% of political donations were from millionaires. Now it's over a third.
Mega donors are given privileged access, influence and even jobs for life in our Parliament. At the same time, the voice of ordinary people is too often going unheard.
To stop our future being sold to the highest bidder, we need to take big money out of politics.
The Solution
At the 2024 election, Labour promised to protect democracy by strengthening the rules around political donations. With the Representation of the People Bill before Parliament, MPs can end the corrosive influence of big money on politics.
by reducing campaign spending limits to a more meaningful level.
to stop the sale of our democracy, as is the case in Canada and Australia.
over contributions to provide assurance over sources of political funding, and aid enforcement of the law.
Some MPs have claimed that putting a cap on donations would mean political parties need public money to campaign.
We disagree – our analysis suggests that under a lower spending limit, an annual donations cap of £50,000 per donor would enable the parties to campaign effectively, without any additional contribution from the taxpayer.
See for yourself. Use our interactive dashboard to explore how to take big money out of politics.
Cap Donations
About
Cap donations is a free-to-use policy tool to explore the potential impact of annual limits on political contributions.
It allows you adjust key policy choices and explore how these might affect:
Methodology
The tool uses data reported by political parties and published by the Electoral Commission. We standardised this data, allowing us to calculate how much any donor has given over time. Our modelling assumes that when a donor has given in amounts over the cap, they would have spread as much of this excess as possible over the next five years. We have also taken into account when donors have made contributions to politicians and other political campaigners covered by the rules.