Short Money

Short Money is funding to support opposition parties in carrying out their parliamentary business. It was introduced in 1975 and is named after Edward Short, then Leader of the House of Commons. It is provided by the House of Commons and recorded in the Electoral Commission’s donation database as public funding.

Who gets Short Money?

Short Money is available to all opposition parties in the House of Commons that secured either two seats, or one seat and at least 150,000 votes, at the previous general election. Short Money is not available to parties whose MPs have not sworn the parliamentary oath.

A separate analogous scheme, Representative Money, was introduced in 2006 for parties whose MPs had not taken the oath (for example, Sinn Féin MPs do not take the oath and do not take their seats in the House of Commons).

What is Short Money for?

The Short Money scheme has three funding components:

• to assist an opposition party in carrying out its parliamentary business
• for the opposition parties’ travel and associated expenses
• for the running costs of the Leader of the Opposition’s office

The scheme is administered under a resolution of the House of 26 May 1999, as amended by a resolution of 23 March 2016, and consolidated and updated (PDF) by the Members Estimate Committee (MEC).

How much do opposition parties get?

The amounts available to the parties from the each of the three components in the financial year commencing 1 April 2025 are set out below:

• General funding: £22,853.25 for every seat won at the last general election plus £45.64 for every 200 votes gained by the party
• Travel expenses: the total amount payable for travel is £251,055.23. This is divided between each opposition party in the same proportion as the amounts given under the general funding scheme set out above
• Leader of the Opposition’s Office: £1,064,739.30

Each component is uprated annually on 1 April by the percentage increase in the consumer price index in the year to the previous December. Allocations throughout a Parliament are based on the results of the previous general election. In a general election year, amounts payable are revised, in the light of the results of the general election.

How does Short Money work for small parties?

The general funding available to parties with five or fewer MPs is subject to a floor and ceiling, set at 50% and 150%, respectively, of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority’s (IPSA) staffing budget for non-London area MPs. For 2025/26, the staffing budget for non-London MPs is £263,370:

• The floor is set at £131,685
• The ceiling is set at £395,055

In the 2024 Parliament, eight parties had five or fewer MPs elected at the July 2024 general election. Of the eight parties:

• three were not entitled to Short Money because they each have one MP and received fewer than 150,000 votes (Alliance Party, Traditional Unionist Voice and the Ulster Unionist Party)
• two were entitled to more than the ceiling amount so received the ceiling amount (Green Party and Reform UK)
• two were entitled to amounts between the floor and ceiling so received those amounts (Democratic Unionist Party and Plaid Cymru)
• one was entitled to less than the floor amount so received the floor amount (Social Democratic and Labour Party)

The table below reports the amounts the qualifying political parties in the 2024 Parliament were able to claim in 2025/26.

Short Money allocations, 2025/26 (£) General Travel LOTO Total Conservative 4,323,575.41 129,928.53 1,064,739.30 5,518,243.24 Lib Dem 2,448,469.80 73,579.40 2,522,049.20 Green Party (ceiling) 395,055.00 11,871.87 406,926.87 Reform UK (ceiling) 395,055.00 11,871.87 406,926.87 SNP 371,032.97 11,149.98 382,182.95 DUP 153,516.65 4,613.36 158,130.01 Plaid Cymru 135,866.36 4,082.93 139,949.29 SDLP (floor) 131,685.00 3,957.29 135,642.29 Reporting requirements

Parties claiming Short Money must provide the Accounting Officer of the House of Commons (the Clerk of the House) with an auditor’s certificate confirming that all Short Money they claimed was spent exclusively on supporting the party’s parliamentary business. In addition, parties have to provide information on staff employed and other costs funded through Short Money.

The required reports from qualifying parties from the 2016/17 financial year onwards can be found on the Financial Assistance to Opposition Parties section of the House of Commons’ Freedom of Information webpages.