Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections and Periods of Suspension) Act 2003

3 Payments relating to May election

(1) The Secretary of State may make payments, in accordance with a scheme under this section, in connection with the May election.

(2) The scheme must provide for the payments to be made to—

(a) registered parties, in connection with campaign expenditure, and

(b) candidates at the May election, in connection with their election expenses.

(3) The scheme must make provision for—

(a) what is to count as campaign expenditure or as election expenses (including any period during which it or they must have been incurred in order to count),

(b) who is to count as a candidate,

(c) a ceiling on payments that may be made under the scheme (or different ceilings for different descriptions of payment), and

(d) arrangements for claiming, verifying and making the payments (including any date by which claims must be made),

and it may make provision for anything else which is relevant for the purposes of the scheme.

(4) The scheme may, in particular, provide for campaign expenditure which would have counted towards the total by virtue of section 1(5) of the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections Act 2003 (c. 3) to count correspondingly for the purposes of payments under the scheme.

(5) The Electoral Commission must submit recommendations to the Secretary of State for the terms of the scheme.

(6) When the Secretary of State receives the recommendations, he must make a scheme in terms which either give effect to those recommendations, or which do so with any modifications he thinks appropriate.

(7) The Secretary of State must publish the scheme which he makes, and he may do so in any way which appears appropriate to him.

(8) Payments made under a scheme under this section are to be made out of money provided by Parliament.

(9) In this section, “registered party” has the same meaning as in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (c. 41).