For me, and as a Scot, we all make mistakes. I get that. If he had paid all £11k himself I wouldn't care.

But charging it as expenses and then refusing to explain it, should be grounds of immediate dismissal. If you're happy to claim it from the public, you need to be transparent when they have questions. Even from the likes of Jackie Baillie and Douglas Ross.

But it shouldn't come to that. Anybody with integrity would apologise and resign for failing to meet the expected standards of the position they hold, and the standards they should hold themselves to. The problem isn't the kids watching your iPad (why they're using official tech for watching football or why you get to use your own tech for government business is another discussion). The problem is the lies, deceit and self entitlement of not having to explain yourself.

Politicians of today, of all flavours, lack integrity, trustworthiness, basic moral standards and self awareness.

The lesson here, again, is actions have consequences.

The SNP started out as a party with good intentions and a passion for a cause (whether you agree with it or not). They have been in power for too long and have taken the power for granted, and become complacent. They now, sadly, have become the pigs in 'Animal Farm'.

Fuck mobile operators, this kind of cost should be illegal to exist at all.

"He failed to properly disclose", that's one way of saying that he bareface lied.

Its OK though he's going to pay some of it himself so that the tax payer only has to cough up £8k.

He should be forced to pay it all and sacked.

Why wasn't there security on the device? My works devices are password protected and it's a disciplinary offence if I share passwords or give unauthorized access.

If he gave them the login creds, then he should be penalised .

If he logged in and gave the device to non parliamentary staff, he should also be penalised.

He got caught because it cost money, which is the lesser offence. Cyber security should be more robust for ministers than it is for most companies, but seemingly not.

Wow another parent who doesn't parent what their kids do online. And then blames corpos for it, and even tries to get the UK taxpayer to pay for it. Sure roaming charges are ridiculous, but I don't even really ever travel and I know that.

"...nearly 3.8Gb of data was used on 2 January, at a cost of £8,666."

shut the up fuck what? i would like to see the itemized bill. and the telecomm companies transparency reports.

they are sand bagging this guy hard, for a simple mistake that all parents fumble with, use of tech when rearing kids. should he have let them? probably not but to then Super Saiyan 3 spirit bomb his ass is a little extreme.

The real question is, why is that even possible?

His regret speech was hilarious. He was genuinely crying.

Oh lord how am I going to get away with this 😭

In most developing countries you can buy a SIM card with a decent data plan for a very low price. If you rack up a huge roaming bill in this day and age you're simply an idiot.

I did this once on a work trip in the early 2000s where I turned on data roaming to download an important document in a meeting and then forgot to turn it off and it downloaded a system update or something. It was like $7000 or something.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Michael Matheson, Scotland’s embattled health secretary, has apologised “unreservedly” after admitting he failed to properly disclose that his sons had largely run up an £11,000 iPad bill which he had initially charged in full to taxpayers.

In a personal statement to MSPs on Thursday, Matheson said he had referred himself for possible investigation by parliament for breaching its code of conduct, as he fought against mounting calls to resign from opposition leaders.

During first minister’s questions on Thursday, Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, called on Matheson to quit, and came as close as parliamentary rules allowed to accuse the health secretary of lying to MSPs.

The scandal erupted last week after it emerged that he had racked up a £10,935 data bill on his parliamentary iPad during a week-long Christmas holiday in Morocco, and refused to explain why.

Matheson told MSPs he had learned from his wife the previous evening – the day the row first blew up – that his sons had used parliamentary data to watch football.

Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, said the saga raised “serious questions” about their judgment, in part because Matheson’s attention had been diverted from tackling NHS Scotland’s numerous crises.

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