Matheson’s £11k bill inquiry results set to be published
An investigation into Health Secretary Michael Matheson’s £11,000 data roaming bill could be published as early as this week.
Mr Matheson has faced repeated calls to resign from the SNP front bench after racking up thousands on his parliamentary ipad during a family holiday to Morocco in December 2022.
He initially tried to claim this on expenses, saying the costs were incurred by using this device for parliamentary work. however, he later admitted the bill was caused by his two teenage sons, who used the device as a wifi hot-spot to live stream football.
Mr Matheson referred himself to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body for investigation, and agreed to pay the full £11,000 bill himself.
It is now understood the investigation has handed its report over to Mr Matheson, who will have just days to respond to its findings.
The report will be published shortly after this.
So far First Minister Humza Yousaf has refused to sack Mr Matheson, saying he made an “honest mistake”.
The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body was investigating whether “an improper claim was made by the member in respect of the charges (or any part of them) within the terms of the reimbursement of members’ expenses scheme”.
The body says expenses claims must be made in “good faith” and MSPS are only entitled to the “reimbursement of expenses which have been incurred only for the purpose of carrying out parliamentary duties”.
Government sources told The Scotsman the Health Secretary had not spoken to Mr Yousaf about the investigation since being handed the report. Mr Matheson has also not spoken to the Scottish Cabinet nor government special advisers about the contents of the report.
He is, however, still due to make a government statement on minimum unit pricing for alcohol tomorrow.
The Scottish Conservatives say it is “high time” the matter was resolved, as the parliamentary body carrying out the investigation stated their provisional findings would likely be provided to Mr Matheson in January.
Party chairman Craig Hoy MSP said: “The public were reassured that this report would be given to Michael Matheson in January. Now that we’ve reached that point, with the discredited Health Secretary still in his job, it’s high time we got a resolution to this matter.
“Hard-working Scots will rightly expect answers about why this claim on taxpayers’ money was ever made. It’s about time they were given them, and for this murky affair to come to an end.”
Meanwhile, Scottish Labour has reiterated their calls for the Health Secretary to be sacked over the scandal.
Dame Jackie Baillie MSP, the party’s deputy leader and health spokeswoman, said: “We simply cannot have thousands of lives being put in dangeron a weekly basis due to this SNP government’s catastrophic failure to support our NHS and its hard-working staff.
“Our NHS has lurched from crisis to crisis, while he has been preoccupied with saving his own job.”