Clause 28 - Return as to election expenses
Electoral Administration Bill
9:00 am
Harriet Harman (Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Camberwell and Peckham, Labour)
The clause gives the Electoral Commission greater flexibility in prescribing the form that candidates must use to submit their election expenses returns. It does so without reducing the amount of information that must be included in the return. The list of election expenses that are to form the basis of an election expense return are detailed in clause 29.
The clause is necessary to deal with the current election expenses return procedures, which are complex and often result in confusion about election expenses, therefore leading to inadvertent errors in the resulting return. The clause will ensure, in turn, that candidates and agents more readily understand the requirements when submitting an election expenses return, thereby reducing the risk that they will submit incorrect or incomplete return.