Michael Matheson said he did not want the parliamentary investigation to become a “distraction”
Former Scottish health secretary Michael Matheson has been found to have breached the MSPs code of conduct in relation to a £11,000 bill he racked up on a parliamentary iPad.
Mr Matheson stepped down from his cabinet post last month, citing the investigation as the reason.
The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) published its findings on Thursday.
Its full report will be considered by Holyrood’s standards committee.
The iPad charges, initially paid out of the public purse, were incurred during a family trip to Morocco in late 2022.
When details of the bill were first made public, he said the device had only been used for parliamentary work.
But he later admitted that his sons had used the iPad as a Wi-Fi hotspot so they could watch football.
Mr Matheson has since paid back the bill in full and apologised.
He was found to have breached clauses of the MSP code of conduct which say members must “abide by the policies” of the SPCB and that “no improper use should be made of any payment or allowance made to members for public purposes”.
Public pressure
The SPCB said: “The SPCB decided that, based on the evidence presented in the investigation report and its findings in fact, Mr Matheson had breached sections 7.3 and 7.4 of the code of conduct and thereby upheld the three complaints within the SPCB’s remit.
“While the costs to the public purse had been addressed, the SPCB agreed that the Nolan Principles of Standards in Public Life, embedded in the scheme and underpinning the appropriate use of parliamentary resources, represented the high standard by which all members must abide and in which the SPCB considered the public must continue to have confidence.”
The report will be referred to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee to consider if the former minister should be sanctioned.
The SPCB – which made no recommendations as to potential punishment – said the full report, including annexes, would be published after the committee’s consideration.
Initially, Mr Matheson used his MSP expenses and office costs to cover the bill, before resolving to pay it himself as he faced scrutiny over the incident.
Mr Matheson had initially told journalists there had been no personal use of the device.
