BRITAIN’S elections watchdog has fined the Tory group at the centre of a dark money row for failing to report more than £200,000 worth of donations.
The Scottish Unionist Association Trust (SUAT) were given three separate fines by the Electoral Commission.
The trust, which is required to report donations over £7,500, failed to declare £50,000 given to them on February 6 2014 and £157,350.07 which they took in on March 13 2017.
They were also carpeted for failing to declare £25,000 donations to the Tories in 2010, 2015, 2016, and 2017.
Since 2001, the trust has donated £350,187.66 to the Tories, £12,424.72 of that in the last quarter of last year.
There have been a number of questions over how the SUAT made its money. The Commission’s investigation was prompted by an investigation by the Ferret website.
Because the trust is not registered with Companies House, the Financial Conduct Authority, or OSCR – Scotland’s charity watchdog – there is no public information available about the people who currently manage the organisation, and no public accounts.
In 2017, the SUAT said the trust was formed in 1968 from “assets of the (then) Scottish Unionist Association, primarily sales of property assets.”
SUAT added that those assets had been invested and the proceeds were now “available to further the aims of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party. It insisted: “All UK taxation liabilities have been and continue to be met in full.”
According to the Electoral Register’s updated website, the £157,350 donation was bequeathed to them by Ann C Hay, a former secretary to the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Association, who died in March 2016.
Louise Edwards, Director of Regulation at the Commission, said the failure to properly report meant “the public did not have the transparency it was entitled to have of SUAT’s finances. “ Green MSP Ross Greer said there were questions for Jackson Carlaw’s party: “The Scottish Tories have been funded by dark money for years. Now this damning Electoral Commission report has been published, they need to urgently explain themselves.”
The SNP’s Pete Wishart said the Scottish Tories needed to “come clean” over their dealings with SUAT.
“The dark money scandal has been lingering around the Scottish Tories like a bad smell and we now know that serious offences have been committed by this shadowy organisation – including a damning indictment by the electoral watchdog that it had consistently failed to provide proper notification of its activities, and as a result, the public did not have the transparency it was entitled to.”
Labour MSP James Kelly welcomed the Commission’s judgment, but said the small fines levied against “this Tory donor group is just a fraction of the money passed on to the party.”
He added: “The Electoral Commission must take pro-active action against the dark money that floods the Tories’ coffers instead of this type of reactive punishment which consists of just miniscule fines with no real consequences.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Tories said their donations were properly reported.
“This is a matter for the Scottish Unionist Association Trust.”
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