This petition was submitted during the 2015-2017 parliament
Rejected petition Give Shareholders the same rights as Union Members over Political Expenditure.
The Trade Union Bill will give Trade Union members an opt-in for Political Funds which must be renewed every 5 yrs.
This creates a significant imbalance in legislation, as a Company’s Shareholders do not have any right of an opt-in (nor an opt-out) to any political expenditure made by the Company.
More details
If the government goes ahead with the TU reforms the same requirements must be made on Companies:
If a Company wishes to make Political contributions, it must do this from a Political Fund which must be kept separate from general funds.
The Political Fund must be optional, funded by contributions taken from individual Shareholders Dividend payments, and not imposed on all individual Shareholders.
The Shareholder must explicitly opt-in to these arrangements, which must be renewed every 5 years.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/104670
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