Prospective parliamentary candidate
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates In British politics, a prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) is a candidate selected by political parties to contest under individual Westminster constituencies in advance of a general election. The term originally came into use because of the strict limits on the maximum expenditure permitted to be incurred by an election candidate, regardless of whether the election had been formally called. The candidates were termed "prospective" because referring to them simply as a candidate would arguably trigger the moment when money spent to promote them would need to be included in their declaration of expenses after the election.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2004, however, the law was changed so that the trigger for election expenses being accountable was to be the calling of an election and not the announcing of a candidacy. Some political parties had already started to use terms such as "parliamentary spokesperson", believing that some voters were confused by the unusual word "prospective";Template:Citation needed however, the older form of words continues to be widely used,<ref>See, for example Halesowen News, September 2008, North Devon Gazette, September 2008Template:Dead link or the Daily Post, September 2008.</ref> despite these changes in the law.