SHAMEFACED Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander pleaded innocence yesterday when he was charged with his party’s refusal to pay an £800,000 policing bill.

The Lib Dem minister — Tory Chancellor George Osborne’s partner in crime — refused to answer questions about spending taxpayer’s cash on the BBC’s Daily Politics show.

As the Lib Dems met in Glasgow this week, Scotland’s Sunday Herald newspaper revealed the party has failed to pay Police Scotland for the cost of policing its 2013 conference.

Police Scotland provided only a thin blue line of protection at this week’s conference as a result.

Mr Alexander was pressed on why the money was still missing on the Daily Politics — but insisted it was nothing to do with him.

He told presenter Andrew Neil that “I don’t know anything about this” and told him to ask “the conference organisers.”

Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie also dodged questions about the unpaid bill yesterday after a debate on policing at Holyrood, saying: “I don’t know very much about that at all.”

SNP MSP Sandra White said: “The Liberal Democrats made a great play of standing up for local policing but now we know the reality is that they are responsible for an £800,000 hole in the Scottish police budget — and expect Scottish taxpayers to pick up the tab for their costs.”

The Home Office pays 85 per cent of policing costs for party conferences in England and Wales.

But the Lib Dems are footing the whole bill as the subsidy does not apply in Scotland.

lukejames@peoples-press.com