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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