Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs Written Evidence


Appendix 2

PUBLIC OPINION

  Public attitudes have begun to change. Conventional wisdom held that state funding for political parties was an unsaleable proposition; it was too unpopular to ever be a realistic policy option. However the State of the Nation 2004 poll conducted by ICM on behalf of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust suggests that this may no longer be the case. The public generally supported the roles that political parties play in a democracy;

    —    71% of respondents agreed that political parties give ordinary voters the chance to choose between different sets of policies for Britain;

    —    64% agreed that they represented important strands of public opinion both in government and opposition; and

    —    51% agreed that they provide vehicles for party activists seeking election to public office.

  This is not to say that the main political parties are actually liked by the public; each of the three main parties was more disliked than liked by the majority of respondents. However there was an awareness of the dangers of the current system of party funding and of the need for reform.

    —    73% of respondents agreed that funding parties by voluntary donations is unfair because there is a risk that wealthy individuals, businesses and trade unions can buy influence over political parties;

    —    62% agreed that political parties with significant public support should be provided with public funds to limit their dependency on donations from wealthy individuals, businesses and trade unions; and

    —    74% agree that there should be a limit on how much people can donate to political parties.

  The Electoral Commission's investigation included both a quantitative poll conducted by MORI[8] and qualitative research. [9]Both pieces of research found that there was a low awareness of the issue of funding for political parties and indeed some confusion. However the MORI poll found that:

    —    70% of respondents agreed that funding political parties by voluntary donations was unfair because there is a risk that wealthy individuals, businesses and trade unions can buy influence over parties; and

    —    59% agreed that there should be some element of funding from taxation for political parties.

  The qualitative research found that once the issues had been explained the public were broadly in favour of increased or total public funding for political parties, even if this meant funding through taxation. The reasons given for supporting public funding for political parties included:

    —    less "sleaze". The public anticipated that increased public funding would create a cleaner more transparent and more responsive system;

    —    low cost for taxpayers. When informed of an estimate as to how much public funding of political parties might cost each taxpayer they felt this to be a small price to pay for the benefits that result; and

    —    a fairer system. The desire to give parties an equal chance and to ensure that none are disadvantaged by having fewer resources was a convincing argument in favour of increased public funding.

  A recent Populus survey[10] carried out for The Times found that:

    —    79% of respondents agreed that there should be a limit on the amount of money that can be donated to any political party to remove the risk of people trying to buy influence/favours;

    —    43% thought that political parties should be funded by the state out of taxpayers' money to eliminate the risk of corruption; and

    —    54% agreed that there should be tax relief on relatively small individual donations to parties by ordinary people, to reduce the reliance of the parties on large donations.





8   MORI (2003) Attitudes towards voting and the political process in 2003. Back

9   Cragg Ross Dawson (2004) Attitudes towards the funding of political parties. Back

10   http://www.populuslimited.com/ Back


 
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