Party political donations hit record levels

Donations to political parties reached their highest level on record around this year's general election, it was disclosed yesterday.

By The Newsroom

Published 24th Aug 2010, 11:59 BST

Updated 24th Aug 2010, 11:59 BST

Some 26.3m worth of gifts were reported by 16 parties as having been received in April, May and June, the Electoral Commission said.

The main beneficiaries were the Conservative Party, which got 12.3m; Labour, with 10.9m; and the Liberal Democrats, with 2m.

The three main parties also took a share of more than 1m of public funds and owed more than 31m between them at the end of the period.

Labour had the highest borrowing at the end of June, with 16,645,172, followed by the Tories on 13,128,326 and the Lib Dems on 1,600,314.

The previous record for quarterly political donations was 20.6m, received by parties in January, February and March 2005 ahead of that year's election.

The increase is even more marked than the figures suggest, as the threshold at which donations have to be reported rose in January.