Holyrood bosses urged to investigate minister's £11,000 iPad charges
The Health Secretary incurred a fee of £10,935.74 during his week-long visit to Morocco last year
The Conservatives is calling on Holyrood bosses to investigate after a Scottish Government minister racked up nearly £11,000 in data roaming charges while using a parliamentary iPad on holiday.
Michael Matheson, who is currently the Health Secretary, incurred a fee of £10,935.74 during his week-long visit to Morocco around Christmas last year.
As the device was issued by the Scottish Parliament, officials at Holyrood challenged the fee but the provider declined to waive it.
Mr Matheson has said he will contribute £3,000 towards the bill from his expenses budget and he insists the data use was for parliamentary business.
At the end of First Minister's Questions on Thursday, Scottish Conservative chairman Craig Hoy raised a point of order to bring the issue to the attention of Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone.
He said: "Last night it was reported that an MSP in this chamber racked up a bill of £11,000 through data roaming charges whilst on holiday.
"A tab that has been picked up entirely by the taxpayer.
"For clarity, that is £65 an hour, 24 hours a day for the seven days he was on holiday in far-flung Morocco.
"This incident has damaged the reputation of the Scottish Parliament and it is incumbent on you Presiding Officer to repair and defend this.
"Therefore, I urge you to conduct a full investigation into this matter, including publishing the full bill that was incurred by Mr Matheson, to explore why the Parliament has appeared to break its own rules of a cap of £200 on roaming charges by paying the bill entirely, and exploring whether Mr Matheson himself has broken any parliamentary rules by claiming for such a large sum."
Ms Johnstone said Mr Hoy's statement was not a point of order but she would respond to him if he wrote to her.
"Caused by an outdated Sim card"
Mr Matheson, who was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, was the net zero, energy and transport secretary at the time the charges were incurred.
He spoke to journalists at Holyrood briefly after FMQs and said: "It's been explained that it's been caused by an outdated Sim card in an iPad that I had for constituency purposes.
"I wasn't aware that it had to be replaced and the cost built up as a result of that."
A spokesman for the First Minister said Humza Yousaf had not spoken to the Health Secretary about the issue.
And a Scottish Parliament spokesman said: "Substantial roaming charges were incurred by Mr Matheson on his parliamentary iPad while in Morocco at the start of this year.
"As the member was still using the Parliament's previous mobile provider and hadn't yet switched to our present contract, he incurred significant data fees over and above its 'rest of the world' tariff rate.
"The Parliament challenged the company over the scale of the data fees - which totalled £10,935.74 - and over the late warning to the rising cost, but the company declined to meet or waive any of the charges.
"On the basis that the member has assured the Parliament that these costs were incurred in relation to parliamentary business and not for personal or Government use, we agreed that Mr Matheson would contribute £3,000 from his office cost provision and the remainder would be paid centrally by the Parliament."
A Scottish Parliament spokesperson said Mr Matheson's data charges were investigated by the parliamentary IT office in January, reviewing the data volume consumed, daily pricing charges and the company's application of tariffs.
The investigation also confirmed he had not updated his iPad's sim card to the new provider as required, and did not notify the IT office before travelling, meaning the appropriate roaming package could not be applied.