Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of requiring think tanks that seek to influence public policy to disclose their sources of private funding.

Electoral law already requires transparency where think tanks make political donations, campaign during elections, or work with political parties on regulated activity, and there are further restrictions on think tanks which have charitable status.

The Government also takes seriously the risk of improper or foreign financial influence on UK democracy. Philip Rycroft’s independent review is examining the wider framework for countering these risks across the political system and will inform the Government’s next steps.