UK names Philip Rycroft to review foreign funding rules
Published on 16 December 2025, the UK government has appointed former senior civil servant Philip Rycroft to lead an independent review into foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics. The appointment letter, signed by Secretary of State Steve Reed OBE MP and issued by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, also releases the review’s terms of reference.
We start with why this matters for you as a reader and voter. In November 2025, former MEP Nathan Gill was sentenced to 10 and a half years for bribery linked to pro‑Russian messaging, a case Transparency International UK said shows a “real and urgent” threat to democracy. These events set the immediate context for the review.
Rycroft brings experience that will feel familiar to anyone studying UK government. He served as Permanent Secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union and previously led the UK Governance Group in the Cabinet Office-useful grounding for work that touches constitutional rules and political standards.
So what will be tested? According to the government’s terms of reference, the review will assess whether political finance law and bribery safeguards are working, how resilient parties are to foreign money, and whether enforcement-including the Electoral Commission’s powers-should be strengthened.
It will examine hard‑to‑trace routes such as crypto‑assets, cash and third parties channelling money into campaigning and advertising. Put simply, the reviewer is being asked to identify where money can enter politics and what checks need to tighten.
A useful classroom note: past allegations surrounding the 2016 referendum are explicitly out of scope. The focus is on future safeguards and lessons drawn from recent cases.
On process and timing, the appointment letter says Rycroft will meet organisations and individuals, review relevant documents and deliver findings by the end of March 2026 to the Secretary of State and the Security Minister. After security and fact‑checking, the report will be published on GOV.UK for all of us to read.
Ministers link this work to the Cross‑Government Counter Political Interference and Espionage Action Plan and to the Defending Democracy Taskforce, chaired by the Security Minister. That means the recommendations should plug into wider protective measures rather than sit on a shelf.
The terms also say the conclusions will inform final provisions for a proposed Elections Bill. For you, that signals a likely policy route: evidence tested here could become changes to donation rules, transparency requirements and enforcement next year.
If you’re studying or teaching this, keep three reader‑friendly checks in mind as coverage unfolds: where the money comes from, how it moves, and who is responsible for checking it. Those questions help you separate headline claims from the concrete fixes this review is being asked to deliver.