THE Scottish Tories have threatened to table a motion of no confidence in Michael Matheson if he does not hand over the iPad on which he ran up almost £11,000 in roaming charges for investigation.
The Health Secretary insisted on Monday that parliamentary authorities had looked at the data usage on the device, but Holyrood officials said the iPad did not “provide a breakdown of data over a specific timeframe”.
Matheson racked up the £10,935.74 bill during a visit to Morocco over Christmas last year, after he had failed to change over a SIM card in the device.
He had initially offered to pay £3000 of the cost, with the Scottish Parliament covering the rest of the bill, but later said he would pay the full amount himself.
And now, Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross has claimed that for Matheson’s claims – that the costs were incurred because of parliamentary and constituency business – to be verified, he must hand over the device to Holyrood IT experts.
The SNP said the move was an attempt to "keep the story going" and insisted Matheson had "done the right thing".
Ross issued an ultimatum to the Health Secretary on Tuesday – that unless he hands over the iPad to be examined and makes a statement to MSPs in Holyrood, then the Scottish Tories will move to force a vote of no confidence.
“We need to get to the bottom of this saga once and for all, so the Scottish Conservatives are issuing the Health Secretary with an ultimatum – hand over the iPad, for the browsing history to be checked, and deliver a personal statement in Parliament explaining the full circumstances, or we’ll table a motion of no confidence,” Ross said in a statement.
On Monday, Matheson accused the Tories of “political mischief” over the issue with the iPad, and insisted it had already been investigated by parliamentary authorities.
Scottish Parliament authorities however said they were “primarily looking at the volume of mobile data consumed” as they had been assured the device was being used for parliamentary purposes.
Ross said this meant Matheson still had “serious questions to answer” over the matter and that “suspicions will linger” until evidence of a breakdown of the costs is provided.
“This scandal has dragged on for several days now and Michael Matheson is looking shiftier with each one that passes,” the Scottish Tory leader said.
“He still has serious questions to answer, and suspicions will linger for as long as he fails to prove his claim that the enormous tab he expected taxpayers to foot was the product solely of parliamentary work.”
We previously reported how Matheson insisted authorities had already investigated.
“They investigated the issue back in January,” he said.
“They had all the data and everything from it. They had access to all of the data on the iPad when they looked at it back in January.”
An SNP spokesperson said: "This is simply an attempt to keep a story going, days after Mr Mathieson has done the right thing and agreed to foot the bill personally.
"While we are focused on crucial issues such as steering our health service through the winter, the Tories only ever want to talk about process issues."
