EdStone lands Labour with record electoral expenses fine

Labour has been fined a record £20,000 by the Electoral Commission for filing incorrect electoral expenses.

The fine is for the 2015 general election period, where there were 74 missing payments totalling £123,748 and 33 invoices totalling £34,392.

The missing payments were noticed earlier this year by journalists, when the electoral commission published the return in January, missing any mention of the expenses related to the now infamous EdStone.

In response to the commission beginning an investigation, the Labour Party began its own internal review, which uncovered a further 24 undeclared election expenses totalling £109,777.

In response to the fine, Bob Posner, director of party and election finance at the electoral commission said: “the Labour Party is a well-established, experienced party. Rules on reporting campaign spending have been in place for over 15 years and it is vital that the larger parties comply with these rules and report their finances accurately if voters are to have confidence in the system.”

In a statement by the commission, they said they were urging the government to increase the maximum allowed fine, presently set at £20,000, to a figure “more in proportion with the spending and donations handled by large campaigners”.

A Labour Party spokeswoman said: “Labour has co-operated fully with the electoral commission during its investigation into general election 2015 campaign spending by political parties. The commission’s investigation found that internal procedural errors led to a relatively small number of items of expenditure not being declared properly. The party regrets these administrative errors. However, these amounted to just over one per cent of our total spending of over £12 million during this election. We accept the findings of the report and have already tightened our internal recording procedures to address the commission’s concerns.”

It is the largest fine handed out by the Electoral Commission since it began covering election spending founding in 2001.