Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether the review into political party spending will examine interactions between candidate spending limits and national party spending limits.

On 10 July 2026, the then Minister for Democracy wrote to the Electoral Commission asking it to review registered political party and third-party campaigner spending limits and provide recommendations by July 2027. On 29 August 2026, the Secretary of State and First Secretary of State expanded the review to include candidate spending limits. The relevant letters are publicly available on GOV.UK.

The Government has not provided the Electoral Commission with formal terms of reference. As the independent regulator for elections, it is appropriate that the Electoral Commission determines how best to conduct the review and consider interactions across the electoral spending framework.

Unincorporated associations are not currently subject to spending limits and are therefore outside the scope of the review. Separately, the Representation of the People Bill contains measures to strengthen the rules that apply to unincorporated associations.