Lib Dems fined £20,000

Lib Dems fined £20,000 by watchdog over undeclared payments.

16:31 08 December 2016

The Electoral Commission has fined the Liberal Democrats £20,000 after it found that 307 payments totaling £184,676 were missing from the party’s spending return. 

 

The commission has already referred the matter to the Metropolitan Police to see if any criminal offences had been committed but the party blames it on “human error and failures of process.” 

 

Explaining the penalty, Bob Posner, director of political finance at the Electoral Commission, said: "This is an experienced party that failed to meet the basic requirements of the law, and cases like this undermine voters' confidence in our political finance system," 

 

"This is why we have applied the highest financial penalty available to us."

 

A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said that issues with a small number of local accounting units had caused the mistakes. He added that measures were being taken to ensure the same mistakes would not happen again in the future. 

 

"We always endeavour to ensure our reports of national campaign expenses are completed in full, in good time and according to all applicable rules," he said.

 

The same penalty was imposed on Labour in October after the pay failed to declare all of its general election expenses.