Politics

June's Westminster election set to cost around £120 million

The last two Westminster elections cost around £236 million to administer. Picture by Rui Vieira/PA Wire
The last two Westminster elections cost around £236 million to administer. Picture by Rui Vieira/PA Wire The last two Westminster elections cost around £236 million to administer. Picture by Rui Vieira/PA Wire

DEMOCRACY is an expensive business, with the last two Westminster elections costing an estimated £236 million to administer.

Add in the referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union last year, the 2014 European elections, and the last two assembly votes, and there isn't much change from half a billion pounds.

On the basis of the estimated expenditure in 2010 and 2015, June's election will cost taxpayers across Britain and Northern Ireland around £120m.

Responses to parliamentary questions in both the House of Commons and House of Lords, excluding the final expenses claims of returning officers, put the estimated cost of the 2010 poll at £113m, rising to £123m in 2015.

Figures for the EU referendum last June have not been finalised, but prior to the vote the Cabinet Office estimated the total bill would be £142m.

The Electoral Commission has said it will produce a "comprehensive report analysing the overall costs of the referendum" by the autumn.

The snap assembly election in March is thought to have cost nearly £5m - the price of employing more than 200 new teachers or nurses, or funding an air ambulance service for Northern Ireland for more than two years.

The vote in May 2016 cost around £3.2m, with a further £1.8m spent on candidate literature.