SNP MP to make donation to charity after Independent reveals he expensed penalty charge

An SNP MP says he will be making a donation to charity after an Independent investigation found he had put a driving penalty charge on expenses.

Dave Doogan said he recognised he had made a mistake and had repaid the cash. He also apologised to his constituents for making the claim.

Mr Doogan was one of several MPs, including a Tory minister, to have expensed the penalties issued by Transport for London.

In a statement issued this week Mr Doogan said the penalty had been issued for the non-payment of the London congestion charge rather than for an error in his driving.

"I now recognise that I should have sought to separate the late payment surcharge from the congestion charge itself and I apologise to my constituents for not doing so," he said.

"Because IPSA failed to contact me in this matter, I contacted them to arrange the urgent return of monies paid to me in error, which have now been repaid. To underline that there was no ill intent on my part, I will also make a matching donation to a local charity here in Angus."

The Angus MP said he had received the charges because on two occasions "the automatic payment system failed to operate as it should have".

He added that he had received a "full apology" for the parliamentary expenses authority IPSA (the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority), which did not catch his incorrect claim.

IPSA had paid the MPs' expenses but admitted it was wrong to have done so after being approached by The Independent.

The authority told The Independent that it would be writing to the MPs to ask for the money to be repaid, and that it would also “reiterate” the expenses rules to them.

In his statement Mr Doogan said he had "a very difficult few days" and that he was "hugely concerned that recent media coverage has heavily implied that [the fines] were in relation to speeding or parking offences".

"This has been very challenging and I wish to reassure my constituents that I would never seek to recover the cost of fines for driving offences," he added.

The Independent had approached Mr Doogan and the other MPs before publication to ask what the penalty charge was for.

Tory minister Amanda Solloway on Wednesday said she was "devastated" after she found out she had expensed her penalty.

A spokesperson for IPSA said: “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.

“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 changed our process to ensure any future such claims are not paid, and will reiterate the scheme rules to MPs.”