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What we know about Conservative and Labour election war chests of up to £48m

Labour and the Conservatives have amassed vast party political war chests for what is widely expected to be the highest-spending general election contest ever.

According to figures released earlier this year by the Electoral Commission, all political parties accepted £93m in donations in 2023 – nearly double the £52m raised in 2022.

It was a particularly lucrative year for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour, which raised some £13.6m in individual donations – a record amount for the party – as part of overall fundraising of £31m.

The Conservatives, who have traditionally enjoyed a higher fundraising income than Labour, raised a total of £48m, including some £35.8m in individual donations.

The Liberal Democrats amassed some £8.4m, while Reform UK received £255,000 from a total of six donations.

The disparity between the financial muscle of the two main parties, which has nonetheless narrowed in recent years, will be somewhat levelled out by rules restricting the total amount any party can spend during an election.

The Government last year increased this from £19m to £34m to reflect factors such as inflation. The spending limit applies for what is known as the “regulated period” – the 365 days up until a general election takes place.

As Louise Edwards, director of regulation for the Electoral Commission, put it: “While there is no limit on what parties can raise, there are spending limits in place ahead of elections to ensure a level playing field.”

The result is that Labour, in reality, is not far from being able to match Tory’s spending power – at least as far as each central party is able to spend. Labour sources have made clear that they expect to continue fundraising to get as close to the £34m limit as possible.

In order to amass their spending firepower, both main parties have assiduously courted individual donors. Donations from individuals and companies to Labour, which received just £5.9m from its traditional income source of trade unions last year, nearly doubled in the same period.

Of that £13.6m, some £10m came from just four sources – Autoglass founder Gary Lubner, who said he wanted his £4.5m to help keep Labour in power “for a long time”; Lord David Sainsbury, the supermarket tycoon, who gave just over £3m; his daughter Fran Perrin, who gave £1m, and the green energy firm Ecotricity, which gave £1m.

Meanwhile, some £15m of the Conservatives’ £35.8m in individual donations came via just two people – the health-tech entrepreneur Frank Hester, who gave £5m personally, and Lord John Sainsbury, a cousin of Labour-supporting David, who made a £10.2m bequest to the Tories in his will.

A further £5m donation came from Phoenix Partnership, the company where Mr Hester, who apologised in March after he had reportedly said Labour MP Diane Abbott made him “want to hate all black women”, is chief executive.

Mr Hester accepted he was rude about Ms Abbott but said his “criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.

While there is a cap on total party spending, there are additional sums that can be spent by each individual candidate in their constituency. This would average at £57,000 per candidate over the entire period of a Parliament, of which a maximum of £19,000 can be spent during the six-week period a general election campaign the country is now entering.

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