SNP faces defeat over Holyrood ban for Michael Matheson

A £10,941.74 bill was racked up on his parliamentary iPad during a family holiday to Morocco between December 2022 and January 2023.

It was agreed with parliament that the bill would be paid out of the public purse, including £3,000 from his own office cost allowance.

When details of the bill were first reported in November 2023, Mr Matheson blamed the bill on an out of date sim card and insisted the device had been used exclusively for constituency work.

Following days of speculation he told parliament his sons had used the iPad to set up a wifi hotspot. He apologised and agreed to pay the bill personally and in full.

He quit as health secretary in February after more than nine years in cabinet ahead of the publication of a report by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB), which found he had breached the MSPs code of conduct.

The SPCB report was then considered by the cross-party standards committee. Labour MSP Martin Whitfield, the committee convener, said the proposed sanctions reflected the seriousness of Mr Matheson’s breach of the MSP code of conduct.

“Had it not been for mitigatory factors, including the impact on the member and his family, the sanctions proposed would likely have been greater,” he said.