Michael Matheson, the Scottish health secretary, racked up almost £11,000 of mobile phone charges while on a week-long holiday in Morocco.
The SNP minister and MSP for Falkirk West accumulated the fees on his parliamentary iPad, which had not been switched over to a new, more generous contract. The £10,936 bill was charged by the parliament’s previous mobile provider, which declined to waive any of the charges after being challenged over its late warning about the rising cost.
Holyrood authorities say they are satisfied the iPad was being used for parliamentary business and not for personal or government purposes, and so will pay the lion’s share of the cost. Matheson’s office will contribute £3,000, with parliament paying the £7,936 remainder.
It comes days after expenses claims by MSPs hit a record high of £23.5 million, a rise of 5.5 pert cent, or £1.2 million, on the year before.
Humza Yousaf, the first minister, claimed for hot water bottles costing £17.98 and a £28.79 heater because his constituency office is cold in winter. His predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, also put wet wipes costing £5.34 on expenses, while Keith Brown, the SNP deputy leader, bought a £26.99 under-desk footrest.
Alasdair Allan, the SNP representative for the Western Isles, produced the biggest bill — £58,693 — followed by his colleagues Karen Adam, MSP for Banffshire & Buchan Coast, who spent £57,722, and Stuart McMillan, MSP for Greenock & Inverclyde, at £54,960.
Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, described Matheson’s charges as “mind-boggling” and said the Scottish public should not have to “pick up this eye-watering bill”. She said: “What on earth could Mr Matheson have been doing to justify the public coughing up for this? The SNP is on a different planet when it comes to wasting taxpayers’ cash.”
Craig Hoy, chairman of the Scottish Conservatives, said the episode demonstrated the SNP’s “cavalier attitude to public money”, adding: “It’s absolutely scandalous that taxpayers are picking up an enormous tab for Michael Matheson’s mistake.
“Even if we are to believe that he racked up this bill doing parliamentary and constituency work on a festive holiday in Morocco, the onus was on him to connect to the wi-fi where he was staying or check with the network provider to avoid brutal roaming charges.
“At a time when Scottish families are hard pressed, this is a scandal and demonstrates the SNP’s totally cavalier attitude to public money. The £120,00-a-year SNP health secretary should do the decent thing and repay this money out of his own pocket.”
An SNP spokesman said: “This was a legitimate parliamentary expense to cover constituency work while overseas. Mr Matheson was not aware of the problem with his device at the time, which has since been resolved.”
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.”
Have they literally just listed the SNP expenses here? That’s some top quality journalism from the Times.
> Humza Yousaf, the first minister, claimed for hot water bottles costing £17.98 and a £28.79 heater because his constituency office is cold in winter.
Seems reasonable? Is he supposed to relay the central heating piping himself?
> His predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, also put wet wipes costing £5.34 on expenses,
Cleaning products in an office? Unacceptable.
> while Keith Brown, the SNP deputy leader, bought a £26.99 under-desk footrest.
Does one of his colleagues maybe suffer from ascites in their feet? Does he even? Perfectly justified reason if so.
> The SNP minister and MSP for Falkirk West accumulated the fees on his parliamentary iPad, which had not been switched over to a new, more generous contract. The £10,936 bill was charged by the parliament’s previous mobile provider, which declined to waive any of the charges after being challenged over its late warning about the rising cost.
Aye and I’m sure he did that deliberately while laughing hysterically. Not *only* was this man working extensively during his holiday of all fucking things to serve the Scottish public, he fell prey to error-induced price gouging by internet providers which should’ve been outlawed over a decade ago.
It’s endemic of the way expenses work that its easy to disconnect the act from the expense.
Matheson has shown an arguably poor opinion of this and shirks any personal responsibility; where the charge incurred in a private company, you’d be strung up by the department director for submitting such an egregious expense. It’s public money being spent on a (quite rightly scandalous) basic failure by the minister. (It’s also a base failure of Government IT policy).
The rest of the article is by the by – because there’s no centralised procurement of “work stuff”, you need to buy portable heaters and footrests (entirely reasonable and required accommodations to meet HSE and DSE requirements) and then expense them back. It’s one of many reforms arguably needed in the way MPs and MSPs are expected to run their constituency practice.
He was using the iPad for parliamentary work purposes while on holiday?
It was the mobile provider for Holyrood that charged the fees?
So it was literally nothing to do with him – and he was working while on holiday?
Cue outrage from the usual suspects!
Sounds remarkably like an ask Reddit post where the user used a works device whilst abroad on holiday only to discover that the usage wasn’t covered in the contract and the bill was thousands despite usage being relatively low.
This is definitely not what politicians should be caught out on but for expense scandals it’s fairly minimal..
5 comments
Michael Matheson, the Scottish health secretary, racked up almost £11,000 of mobile phone charges while on a week-long holiday in Morocco.
The SNP minister and MSP for Falkirk West accumulated the fees on his parliamentary iPad, which had not been switched over to a new, more generous contract. The £10,936 bill was charged by the parliament’s previous mobile provider, which declined to waive any of the charges after being challenged over its late warning about the rising cost.
Holyrood authorities say they are satisfied the iPad was being used for parliamentary business and not for personal or government purposes, and so will pay the lion’s share of the cost. Matheson’s office will contribute £3,000, with parliament paying the £7,936 remainder.
It comes days after expenses claims by MSPs hit a record high of £23.5 million, a rise of 5.5 pert cent, or £1.2 million, on the year before.
Humza Yousaf, the first minister, claimed for hot water bottles costing £17.98 and a £28.79 heater because his constituency office is cold in winter. His predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, also put wet wipes costing £5.34 on expenses, while Keith Brown, the SNP deputy leader, bought a £26.99 under-desk footrest.
Alasdair Allan, the SNP representative for the Western Isles, produced the biggest bill — £58,693 — followed by his colleagues Karen Adam, MSP for Banffshire & Buchan Coast, who spent £57,722, and Stuart McMillan, MSP for Greenock & Inverclyde, at £54,960.
Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, described Matheson’s charges as “mind-boggling” and said the Scottish public should not have to “pick up this eye-watering bill”. She said: “What on earth could Mr Matheson have been doing to justify the public coughing up for this? The SNP is on a different planet when it comes to wasting taxpayers’ cash.”
Craig Hoy, chairman of the Scottish Conservatives, said the episode demonstrated the SNP’s “cavalier attitude to public money”, adding: “It’s absolutely scandalous that taxpayers are picking up an enormous tab for Michael Matheson’s mistake.
“Even if we are to believe that he racked up this bill doing parliamentary and constituency work on a festive holiday in Morocco, the onus was on him to connect to the wi-fi where he was staying or check with the network provider to avoid brutal roaming charges.
“At a time when Scottish families are hard pressed, this is a scandal and demonstrates the SNP’s totally cavalier attitude to public money. The £120,00-a-year SNP health secretary should do the decent thing and repay this money out of his own pocket.”
An SNP spokesman said: “This was a legitimate parliamentary expense to cover constituency work while overseas. Mr Matheson was not aware of the problem with his device at the time, which has since been resolved.”
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.”
Have they literally just listed the SNP expenses here? That’s some top quality journalism from the Times.
> Humza Yousaf, the first minister, claimed for hot water bottles costing £17.98 and a £28.79 heater because his constituency office is cold in winter.
Seems reasonable? Is he supposed to relay the central heating piping himself?
> His predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, also put wet wipes costing £5.34 on expenses,
Cleaning products in an office? Unacceptable.
> while Keith Brown, the SNP deputy leader, bought a £26.99 under-desk footrest.
Does one of his colleagues maybe suffer from ascites in their feet? Does he even? Perfectly justified reason if so.
> The SNP minister and MSP for Falkirk West accumulated the fees on his parliamentary iPad, which had not been switched over to a new, more generous contract. The £10,936 bill was charged by the parliament’s previous mobile provider, which declined to waive any of the charges after being challenged over its late warning about the rising cost.
Aye and I’m sure he did that deliberately while laughing hysterically. Not *only* was this man working extensively during his holiday of all fucking things to serve the Scottish public, he fell prey to error-induced price gouging by internet providers which should’ve been outlawed over a decade ago.
It’s endemic of the way expenses work that its easy to disconnect the act from the expense.
Matheson has shown an arguably poor opinion of this and shirks any personal responsibility; where the charge incurred in a private company, you’d be strung up by the department director for submitting such an egregious expense. It’s public money being spent on a (quite rightly scandalous) basic failure by the minister. (It’s also a base failure of Government IT policy).
The rest of the article is by the by – because there’s no centralised procurement of “work stuff”, you need to buy portable heaters and footrests (entirely reasonable and required accommodations to meet HSE and DSE requirements) and then expense them back. It’s one of many reforms arguably needed in the way MPs and MSPs are expected to run their constituency practice.
He was using the iPad for parliamentary work purposes while on holiday?
It was the mobile provider for Holyrood that charged the fees?
So it was literally nothing to do with him – and he was working while on holiday?
Cue outrage from the usual suspects!
Sounds remarkably like an ask Reddit post where the user used a works device whilst abroad on holiday only to discover that the usage wasn’t covered in the contract and the bill was thousands despite usage being relatively low.
This is definitely not what politicians should be caught out on but for expense scandals it’s fairly minimal..