UK Tories fined £70k for election spending breaches

The Conservative Party has been fined a record £70,000 and its former treasurer referred to the Metropolitan Police for breaching election campaign spending rules, the Electoral Commission said on Thursday.

An investigation concluded there were “significant failures by the party to report accurately on how much it spent on campaigning at three by-elections in 2014 and at the 2015 UK parliamentary general election”.

The fine caps off a miserable week for the ruling party. On Wednesday Chancellor Philip Hammond was forced into a humiliating U-turn over a key tax raising measure only seven days after announcing it in the Budget, while Brexit Secretary David Davis stunned a parliamentary committee by admitting no impact assessment had been made on the effect of leaving the EU without a trade deal.

The commission said Simon Day, registered treasurer until April 2016, had allegedly breached the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA) and was referring him to the police as it did not have the power to sanction him.

The fines come as news emerged that 12 police forces across the country were looking into whether some MPs' agents should have filed costs associated with 'battle bus' visits to their constituencies in their local expenses.

The party’s 2015 UK general election spending return was missing payments worth at least £104,765, the commission found.

Separately, payments worth up to £118,124 were either not reported to the commission or were incorrectly reported by the party. The party also did not include the required invoices or receipts for 81 payments to the value of £52,924 and failed to maintain records explaining the amounts it invoiced to candidates in three 2014 by-elections, for work on their campaigns

TORIES UNCOOPERATIVE

There was also criticism of "unreasonable uncooperative conduct" by the party which delayed "without good reason and for a number of months the provision of information needed to progress the investigation".

"This in turn increased the public funds incurred by the commission during the investigation," the investigation report stated, adding that at one stage it had to go to the High Court to force the party to hand over documents.

Commission chair Sir John Holmes said the investigation had uncovered "numerous failures by a large, well-resourced and experienced party to ensure that accurate records of spending were maintained and that all of the party’s spending was reported correctly".

"The rules established by parliament for political parties and their finances are there to ensure transparency and accountability. Where the rules are not followed, it undermines voters’ confidence in our democratic processes, which is why political parties need to take their responsibilities under the legislation seriously.”

He also called for more powers for the commission to deal with what appeared to now be regular breaches by political parties in failing to report up to six figure sums following major elections, and have been fined as a result.

"There is a risk that some political parties might come to view the payment of these fines as a cost of doing business; the commission therefore needs to be able to impose sanctions that are proportionate to the levels of spending now routinely handled by parties and campaigners," he said.

The commission said Day had signed off the party’s 2015 spending returns as accurate, but its the investigation established that it was "neither complete nor correct" the evidence gathered during the course of the investigation had given it "reason to suspect that an offence may have been committed".

"Knowingly or recklessly making a false declaration under this section of the Act is a criminal offence and falls outside the remit of the commission’s civil sanctioning powers. It will be a matter for the police as to what steps they take following the commission’s referral," it said.

In its response, the Conservatives said it regretted the "reporting error" and would "continue to keep our internal processes under review to ensure this does not happen again”.

'Battle buses were used by the Tories to transport activists into key marginal constituencies during the campaign. The party has insisted that this was party of its national strategy and therefore did not have to be declared in local returns as required by law.

However, the commission said coaches of activists were transported to marginal constituencies to campaign "alongside or in close proximity to local campaigners".

"In the commission’s view, there was a clear and inherent risk that activists might engage in candidate campaigning. Further, it is apparent that candidate campaigning did take place during the Battlebus2015 campaign," it said.

The probe led to bitter infighting between Conservative MPs and the party's central office which became very public on Wedensday after it was revealed that one parliamentarian had been question by police under caution over his 2015 election expenses.

Craig Mackinlay, who fought and won the South Thanet seat against the then UKIP leader Nigel Farage, was interviewed for six hours, British media reported. The MP has denied any wrongdoing.

The Electoral Commission started a probe after a Channel 4 news investigation into spending on hotels for activists campaigning in the seat. It had been claimed that those costs, along with transport expenses, had been recorded as national instead of local in an effort to meet election campaign rules.

Another MP waded into the row on Wednesday, accusing Tory central office (CCHQ) of leaving MPs to “fend for themselves” over the matter.

Karl McCartney, whose bid to retain his Lincoln seat is also being probed, says a draft report into the controversy from the Electoral Commission had been hidden by Tory central office.