The Scottish Mail on Sunday

Police probe Labour election expenses

- By Paul Cahalan

POLICE have announced that they are investigat­ing three Labour MPs for electoral expenses fraud after they allegedly failed to declare tens of thousands of pounds spent on recruiting staff to get them re-elected.

South Yorkshire Police are investigat­ing Sir Kevin Barron, John Healey and Sarah Champion over financial declaratio­ns made to the Electoral Commission in the run-up to the General Election last year.

A key question may be whether the Labour Party or the individual MPs were responsibl­e for declaring this expenditur­e.

Sir Kevin, MP for Rother Valley, allegedly did not correctly declare £21,000 spent on one member of staff hired before the 2015 Election, while Mr Healey, who represents Wentworth and Dearne, is alleged to have failed to properly declare than £30,000. And Rotherham MP Miss Champion is accused of using her parliament­ary assistant, Dawn Elliott, to campaign for her during the General Election campaign, which is forbidden under electoral expenses law as the role is publicly funded.

Last night the three Labour MPs rejected the allegation­s, saying their Election expenses were declared ‘within the law and the rules set out by the Electoral Commission’.

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