Michael Matheson urged to tell ‘full truth’ as speculation grows £11,000 iPad bill was due to ‘watching football games’

Michael Matheson is being urged to tell the “full truth” over his holiday iPad usage following the release of a breakdown of his bill.

Scotland’s health secretary was charged more than £7,000 in fees in just one day – with opposition MSPs speculating Mr Matheson could have been streaming the Old Firm derby on the device.

The breakdown of the bill emerged after First Minister Humza Yousaf gave his backing to Mr Matheson amid a threat of no confidence and said the “matter is now closed”.

Mr Matheson has come under fire for racking up nearly £11,000 in data roaming fees on his parliamentary iPad during a family trip to Morocco last winter.

The Falkirk West MSP initially billed the taxpayer after claiming the device was used for constituency work.

He then U-turned and agreed to foot the whole bill from his own pocket after it emerged last week that he had failed to switch over from Holyrood’s old mobile contract to a new one which had led to the excessive charges.

A breakdown of the data usage between 28 December 2022 and 3 January 2023 has now been released via an FOI, which shows that Mr Matheson was billed thousands of pounds in one day due to his failure to replace the old SIM card.

The largest data usage occurred on 2 January. There were two separate entries for the day, including £1,320 for 710MB and £7,345 for 3.18GB.

No figure is listed for 1 January, so one of the entries could relate to that day due to a lag effect in the billing system.

Scottish Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser suggested the charges could have been related to a Rangers and Celtic game.

Posting on X, formerly Twitter, he said: “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that there was an Old Firm match on 2 January.”

The second largest fee was on 28 December, when Mr Matheson was charged £2,249 for using 1.26GB.

Scottish Tory MSP Stephen Kerr noted that Hibs faced Celtic on that day.

He posted on X: “A coincidence? We need the full truth.”

In total, Mr Matheson used more than 6GB of data over the course of the week.

Breakdown of bill:
28 December 2022: 1.26GB – £2,249.17
30 December 2022: 68.70MB – £0
31 December 2022: 505.67MB – £20.17
2 January 2023: 710.89MB – £1,320.71
2 January 2023: 3.18GB – £7,345.69
3 January 2023: 392.66 MB – £6

The Scottish parliament said the incident has triggered an urgent policy review around mobile device use and data roaming charges.

Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone said: “We must be in a position where we have reviewed and tightened all policies to ensure the present situation cannot happen again.”

Mr Matheson was contacted for comment.