By Bill Heaney

MSPs claimed £25.3 million bill for expenses last year, with taxpayers footing the bill. The cost represents an 8% increase from 2022/23 and is being blamed on inflation.

The Scottish Parliament published expenses data for the 2023/24 financial year with this covering staff and office costs for elected representatives.

The most recent total expenditure was £25,359,035 with this an increase of £1,891,082 or 8.06% on the previous year’s corresponding figure of £23,467,953.

In addition party leader’s allowance increased in the last year, with Douglas Ross and Humza Yousaf netting the biggest sum at £46,002, up from £42,804 in 2022/23, as they had more than 30 MSPs. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar secured £24,220 due to having between 15 and 29 MSPs.

A Scottish Parliament spokesman said: “As with every year, staff salaries comprise the largest single expense, with £20.60m covering staff employment in MSPs parliamentary and local offices – that’s 81.25% of the total cost.
The remainder covers the cost of running those offices, travel, and support for party leaders who are not in government.”

“The 8.06% rise in expenses reflects that the Retail Price Index was running at more than 13% in January 2023, and Average Weekly Earnings was above 5%.”

There was a highly publicised row in the last year involved SNP Health Secretary Michael Matheson who attempted to claim back a £11k data roaming bill.

He insisted that this was due to a faulty sim card he used while on holiday in Morocco and that it was for constituency work.

However, he was found to have lied to MSPs, the media and even Parliament bosses about this before he admitted that his children used his iPad to watch football.

It led to him quitting the government and he was suspended from Holyrood for 27 days.

He spent £22,000 in 2023/24, with this including charges for fixing his computer in his constituency office, BT office phone costs and £13.99 for toilet rolls.