Labour raises £350k more than Tories in first campaign week

Official figures from the Electoral Commission show £3.247m was donated to political parties in the first week of the general election campaign, between 30 May – 5 June.

Of the smaller parties, Reform UK had the largest donation figure of £140,000, closely followed by the SNP with £127,998 and the Cooperative Party with £120,000.

The Climate Party and the Social Democratic Party both declared £25,000.

The Green Party has not declared any donations, because they did not meet the £11,000 minimum threshold for declarations.

The total figure includes public funds of £830,218, largely made up of Short money, which is given to opposition parties with more than two MPs and named after the MP Edward Short who first proposed the idea of funding parties per seat.

Although Plaid Cymru did not receive any donations, they did receive £33,194 of public funding.

Louise Edwards of the Electoral Commission said this was the first of six reports on donations to parties, which are “an important part of delivering transparency for voters”.