MICHAEL Matheson should be suspended from sitting at Holyrood for 27 days and have his salary cut for 54 days, a committee has said.
Holyrood’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee convener, Labour MSP Martin Whitfield, announced the recommended sanctions against the former health secretary on Thursday morning.
Matheson was facing sanctions after racking up an £11,000 iPad bill, and then lying about why he had done so.
He initially claimed the bill had been accrued while doing constituency work when holidaying in Morocco – and got the taxpayer to foot the bill.
However, Matheson was later forced to admit it had cost so much due to his sons tethering to the iPad to watch the football. He then said he would pay the money himself.
The SNP MSP eventually resigned as health secretary amid the row, and his colleagues on the standards committee have now announced their recommended sanctions.
The committee unanimously backed docking Matheson’s pay for a period of 54 days.
It also agreed – but not unanimously – to recommend an exclusion from parliament “for a period of 27 sitting days”.
The recommended sanctions will have to be approved by parliament.
There were four MSPs on the committee other than Whitfield, the convener. These were Jackie Dunbar and Alasdair Allan from the SNP, and Oliver Mundell and Annie Wells from the Tories.
Wells (above) had recommended the exclusion of 27 days, but the SNP members said they found this "extremely high compared to any sanctions in previous cases".
Mundell said a "significant" suspension was necessary to signal to the public that the case was taken seriously.
He added that people in the "real world" who did the same as Matheson would likely lose their job, rather than facing suspension.
The decision will increase pressure on Matheson to stand down as an MSP, given the Scottish Parliament has no way of removing elected members in the way the UK Parliament does.
South of the Border, a suspension of 10 sitting days is enough to spark a recall petition, which allows constituents to remove an MP if 10% of them sign.
Scots Tory leader Douglas Ross was quick to speak, saying: "[Matheson] must now resign as an MSP. In any other job he would've been sacked for his actions."
