Scotland’s Health Secretary, Michael Matheson, announced his resignation amidst allegations of an improper expenses claim related to an £11,000 bill on his parliamentary iPad. Matheson said he did not want the controversy to “become a distraction” and is resigning ahead of the report from an investigation by the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body into the incident.
The iPad charges were initially paid out of the public purse and were incurred during a family trip to Morocco in late 2022. When details of the bill were made public, Matheson insisted that the device had only been used for parliamentary work. However, he later admitted that his sons had used the iPad as a data hotspot so they could watch football. Matheson has since repaid the bill in full and apologized.
Neil Gray has been appointed as the new health secretary. He led Yousaf’s SNP leadership campaign last year and had been the government’s wellbeing economy, fair work, and energy secretary. In his resignation letter to First Minister Humza Yousaf, Matheson said he has still not received the corporate body’s report but “it is in the best interest of myself and the government for me to now step down to ensure this does not become a distraction to taking forward the government’s agenda.”
Matheson’s resignation comes just half an hour before Yousaf faced opposition leaders at First Minister’s Questions, with Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross saying Matheson had made a “false claim for thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money”. The Scottish Parliament Corporate Body is investigating whether Matheson made an improper expenses claim and failed to follow parliament policies
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