Question Author
Some more (just to settle this):
What assistance the campaigns can get
A grant of up to £600,000. The Electoral Commission says this can be used for certain spending including administrative costs, putting together campaign broadcasts and producing a leaflet to send out to voters.
A free mailing of that leaflet to voters. This is only for the delivery by Royal Mail, rather than dissemination online. It excludes any spending on production.
Free referendum campaign broadcasts.
A free dedicated page in an information booklet sent to every household by the Electoral Commission.
Use of certain public buildings for meetings.
These don’t count towards the £7 million limit for campaign spending as they’re not charged to the campaigns.
There’s good reason to assume these benefits amount to “millions of pounds” of public money, as Mr Fallon said.
The free mailout each lead organisation is entitled to, for instance, is likely to cost a significant amount. Back in 2011, during the referendum on the AV voting system, over £8 million of public money was spent funding the delivery of the two lead campaigns’ free mailout to addresses across the country.
So while the campaigns only directly get £600,000, the free benefits they’re also entitled to will amount to a public cost.
Michael Fallon mentioned on Sky News today a figure of “over £20 million” of public money being made available to both campaigns. We’ve asked the government for a source for this figure.
If you’re wondering why the direct grant is set at £600,000, incidentally, it’s designed to be the equivalent in today’s money of what the campaigns in the 1975 EU referendum got.