Parliament investigated £11,000 roaming bill iPad in January – Matheson

Scotland’s Health Secretary has said parliamentary authorities have already looked at the data from the iPad on which he built up an almost £11,000 bill while on holiday, after facing calls to hand it over.

Speaking to reporters at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital on Tuesday, Michael Matheson faced further questions over the £10,935.74 bill from a visit to Morocco around Christmas last year.

On Friday, Mr Matheson said he would pay back the money, but the Scottish Conservatives have called for the Scottish Parliament’s IT department to examine the device so it can be verified that the bill relates “solely to parliamentary and constituency-related work”.

But Mr Matheson insisted IT officials at the Scottish Parliament have already looked at the iPad and found there had been no personal use.

Mr Matheson told reporters on Monday: “Parliament investigated this issue, keep in mind, back in January, where one of our senior IT officials looked into it and came to a view on this matter.

“That’s why I took the personal decision, as I said in my statement on Friday, that I will reimburse the Parliament for the full costs of that.”

Mr Matheson was then asked if he would hand over his iPad to the parliamentary authorities.

To which he responded: “They investigated the issue back in January.

“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.”

Mr Matheson accused the Conservatives of “political mischief” over the issue with the iPad, but said: “The issue has already been investigated. I realise they weren’t aware of that.”

He maintained that he would not resign from his position.

The bill was linked to an “outdated” SIM card in the device, with the Conservatives also demanding to know if Mr Matheson still has the iPad and whether he will make public all correspondence from Parliament “on the expensing of the roaming charges and regarding the need to upgrade the iPad’s SIM card”.

Scottish Conservative chairman Craig Hoy urged the Health Secretary to set out what steps he had taken to “protect public money and keep costs low, in line with the value for money requirements set out in the official expenses policy”.

Mr Hoy told Mr Matheson that his “belated commitment to pay for these roaming charges in full should not distract from the fact that such a large bill does not represent value for money for the taxpayer”.

Stressing it is “important that these key questions are answered”, Mr Hoy told the Health Secretary: “If you refuse to disclose this information, it will be clear that you have something to hide and are covering up the truth from taxpayers about how you spent their money.”

The challenge came after Mr Matheson confirmed on Friday that he would “reimburse the full cost of the £10,935.74 incurred in roaming charges on my Parliament iPad”.

Speaking then, the Health Secretary said while the Parliament had agreed to pay “the bulk of this sum as a legitimate expense” with part of the cost coming from his Holyrood office allowance, he had reflected “long and hard” on the matter.

Adding that the SIM card on the device “should have been replaced at an earlier stage”, he said he would pay back the entire sum.

However, Mr Hoy said: “When Michael Matheson was belatedly shamed into repaying the staggering sum that he had the audacity to expect the taxpayer to foot, he told us that his integrity matters.

“Therefore, he must immediately hand over his iPad so that Parliament authorities can verify his claim that he only incurred roaming charges related to parliamentary business during his Moroccan holiday.”

The Tory said: “Mr Matheson has many serious unanswered questions to address, which is why I have written to him requesting that he make a statement at Holyrood this week so that we can get to the bottom of this scandal.

“A failure to answer these questions will further add to the public’s suspicion that Michael Matheson has something to hide over this scandal.”

A Scottish Parliament spokesperson said: “We can confirm a senior IT official examined Mr Matheson’s iPad in person at Holyrood to ensure it was functioning properly, which was duly established.

“The official reviewed the iPad’s mobile data settings and data use, but the device does not provide a breakdown of data over a specific timeframe.

“The official observed a cumulative total, which accrues over the lifetime of the device.”