Parties 'face greater scrutiny'

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Political parties will face fines of up to £5,000 "as a matter of course" if they are late declaring donations, loans and accounts, a watchdog says.

The Electoral Commission also promised to set up "on-the-ground" teams to vet campaign spending returns and identify where the law was being broken.

Chairman Sam Younger said parties would in future face "greater scrutiny".

The commission also said it wanted to focus more on ensuring people know how to register to vote.

'Plenty of time'

This would mean a "significant shift" towards supplying the public with information on how to do this, rather than "seeking to drive voter turnout or broader civic engagement".

Parties are required to hand in up-to-date figures every three months.

Under current rules, donations worth £5,000 or more to national parties have to be declared, as well as those worth £1,000 or more to local associations.

Mr Younger said: "Parties and candidates have had plenty of time to get used to the laws on finances and spending.

"They will, in the future, be facing greater scrutiny from us, more investigative work by our compliance team, and consequences if they break the rules."

Since the UK introduced postal and proxy voting on demand in 2001, there has been a series of allegations of electoral fraud.

A judge looking into vote-rigging in Birmingham's 2004 local elections said he had heard evidence that "would disgrace a banana republic".

Review

The commission said it planned to check the accuracy of the electoral register in England and Wales, from which it is thought 3.5 million people are missing.

The watchdog also wants to find out how many people are on the register who should not be.

In January, the Committee on Standards in Public Life said the commission lacked "courage, competence and leadership".

But chief executive Peter Wardle said: "We started our review of the commission's future direction over 12 months ago.

"We completed that review around the middle of last year and we set out our conclusions in our own evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life."