Scotland’s health secretary, Michael Matheson, is expected to make a personal statement to the Scottish parliament over an £11,000 data roaming bill. Holyrood is yet to confirm if it accepted the request for Matheson to make the statement. The health secretary incurred the charges during a holiday to Morocco last year, which included more than £7,000 in one day. MSPs are unable to ask follow-up questions after a personal statement in the chamber.
Prior to the roaming charges being published, First Minister Humza Yousaf gave his “100% backing” to Matheson and insisted he was not “distracted” by the iPad row. Mr Yousaf described the expenses as a “legitimate” expense, however, 24 hours later, Matheson agreed to pay the cost himself. He accepted that he should have changed the sim card in the device when the parliament changed its mobile provider from EE to Vodafone the year before.
The breakdown released by parliament on Wednesday revealed that while on a week-long holiday to Morocco over Christmas last year, the health secretary used more than 6GB of data. Opponents have pointed out that on the day Matheson was billed £7,346 – 2 January 2023 for using 3.18GB – coincided with an Old Firm football match. The next highest fee occurred on 28 December 2022, when the minister was charged £2,249 for using 1.26GB.
The Conservatives have urged the health secretary to hand over his iPad so his browsing history can be examined and are threatening to call a vote of no-confidence if he refuses. Mr Matheson has rejected calls to hand in the device, stating that the matter had already been investigated by a parliamentary IT manager. They also examined the mobile data usage, but were only presented with a cumulative total and did not see the browsing history
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