Four MPs ordered to repay driving fines claimed on bills utilizing taxpayer funds
Four MPs have been ordered to repay driving fines claimed on bills utilizing taxpayers’ cash.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, generally known as IPSA, has written to every of the MPs ordering them to repay the fines.
Penalty cost notices could be handed out because of a number of offences, together with parking on double pink strains, driving in bus lanes and wrongly utilizing disabled bays.
It is just not identified the explanations for the 4 MPs’ penalty prices.
The MPs embrace junior minister Amanda Solway, who was discovered to have claimed an £80 mounted penalty discover in July 2020.
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Ms Solway, who’s a junior minister within the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, listed the declare below “MP travel expenses”.
A supply near Ms Solloway advised The Independent that these had been claimed in error and had been paid again.
Fellow Tory MPs, Bim Afolami and Simon Hoare, additionally expensed a number of fines from Transport for London.
According to the Independent, Mr Hoare has claimed 4 instances for £80 fines issued in November 2019.
He is MP for Dorset and is presently the chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.
The Independent reported that Mr Hoare, who’s MP for Dorset and present chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee chair, had claimed 4 instances for £80 fines issued in November 2019.
Mr Afolami used taxpayers’ cash to pay for 2 £80 fines in December 2021
But he claimed the incident occurred because of an “administrative mixup”, the place his IPSA card was registered to his TfL congestion cost account and it was used to pay the penalty by mistake.
He advised the Telegraph: “I would have never knowingly paid for penalties with the card – when I found out this had happened, I repaid the £160 immediately.”
A spokesperson for IPSA mentioned: “MPs are not allowed to claim for penalty charges and fines under IPSA rules. Paragraph 3.26 of the Scheme of MPs’ Staffing and Business Costs clearly states that these fines are not claimable.
“Congestion cost could be claimed by MPs from outdoors London who drive into central London for work.
“IPSA’s checks failed in some cases to identify these claims and some of them were paid. We will contact MPs and ask them to repay, where appropriate.
“We have modified our course of to make sure any future such claims usually are not paid and can reiterate the scheme guidelines to MPs.”