The former Scottish health secretary Michael Matheson faces being suspended from Holyrood after wrongly claiming nearly £11,000 in expenses for an iPad roaming bill run up on holiday.
An official inquiry by the Scottish parliament found Matheson breached two parts of its code of conduct by failing to abide by parliamentary policies and by making “improper use” of its expenses.
The inquiry’s findings, which upheld three complaints against Matheson, will be studied by Holyrood’s standards committee, which has the power to suspend him as an MSP and to withdraw his privileges.
Matheson quit as health secretary in February after weeks of controversy over his claim that his £10,935 mobile data bill, incurred during a holiday in Morocco, was a legitimate parliamentary expense. He claimed the full sum on expenses.
After days of controversy over the size of his claim, it emerged in November that his sons had used his parliamentary iPad as a hotspot to watch a football match on 2 January; £8,666 in data charges were incurred that day.
Matheson took four days to share that information with Humza Yousaf, the first minister and Scottish National party leader, and meanwhile continued to tell reporters that none of the data was for personal usage.
Unlike Westminster, Holyrood does not have a system of mandatory recall petitions, which are triggered if an MP is suspended for 10 sitting days or more.
In January, the Scottish Conservative MSP Graham Simpson tabled a private member’s bill at Holyrood to introduce similar measures for MSPs; so far only two Labour members have backed the measure alongside 21 Tory MSPs.
While the lack of an automatic recall system means the SNP will avoid the risk of a byelection in Matheson’s seat of Falkirk West, the controversy still presents Yousaf with political challenges. If Yousaf tries to raise sleaze cases involving the Tories in the run-up to the next general election, he faces being challenged over his defence of Matheson’s conduct.
Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, said: “The fact is that Humza Yousaf and senior ministers were complicit in Michael Matheson’s attempt to mislead the parliament. This is a serious error of judgment.”
Craig Hoy, the Scottish Tories’ chair, said Matheson should resign and confirm he had not taken the £12,712 he was due in ministerial severance pay.
“This is a devastating and damning report for the disgraced former health secretary,” he said. “The public saw through the repeated lies from the outset and now they have been fully exposed. Humza Yousaf also must urgently explain why he backed his former cabinet colleague for so long, rather than sacking him when his lies were first uncovered.”
