FORMER SNP health secretary Michael Matheson has announced he will step down at the next election.
The Falkirk West MSP said he wanted to seek "new challenges outwith frontline politics".
In a lengthy statement on Instagram, the MSP wrote that he had advised his constituency association he would not to seek re-election to the Scottish Parliament next year.
Matheson resigned as health secretary after questions were raised about an £11,000 data roaming bill on his parliamentary iPad.
After initially saying the device was used for official work, he later admitted his sons had used it as a data hotspot to watch football during a holiday in Morocco.
He was formally suspended from Parliament for 27 days last year after Holyrood’s Standards Committee chose to sanction him.
"As one of the original Members of the Scottish Parliament elected in 1999, by the time of the election in 2026 I will have served as an MSP for twenty-seven years," Matheson wrote.
"When I joined the SNP at 17 years of age the re-establishment of a Scottish Parliament was still a distant prospect. I could never have imagined that I would have had the privilege to represent Falkirk in our national Parliament for over two decades. "I want to offer my sincere thanks to my constituents for the support and encouragement they have given me over the last twenty-six years, it has been the privilege of my life to represent the people of Falkirk. "During my time in Parliament, I was also honoured to serve in Government for 13 years across five different ministerial portfolios. I will always be deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to serve in Government and to implement policy in justice, health, transport, and climate change that has made Scotland a better place for all.
