Police Scotland are assessing a new complaint relating to Michael Matheson’s £11,000 iPad data roaming bill, the Herald can reveal.

Mr Matheson was forced to quit as health secretary after it emerged that he had racked up the bill because his sons were using the parliamentary device as a hotspot to watch football during a family holiday to Morocco.

Holyrood voted on Wednesday to impose a 27-day suspension on Mr Matheson and dock him 54 days’ wages. 

SNP MSPs refused to back the sanction and abstained. He started that suspension on Thursday and is expected back in September after Holyrood’s summer recess.

READ MORE: SNP anger as Matheson handed record ban from Holyrood

His suspension, recommended by the parliament's standards committee last week before it was voted on on Wednesday, followed  a long awaited investigation by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) which in March found that he had twice breached the Scottish parliament’s code of conduct and upheld  three complaints that were made against him.

The issue surrounding Mr Matheson's iPad bill triggered a complaint to the police in November, the force told The Herald.

That complaint was not proceeded with, but the force said a new complaint had been made.

On Thursday, The Herald asked Police Scotland if there been any complaints to the police about former health secretary Michael Matheson in relation to his iPad bill and if the force are you investigating the matter.

READ MORE: John Swinney has 'stemmed the bleeding' of support for SNP

This afternoon a Police Scotland spokesperson told the paper: “A complaint which had been received in November 2023 was assessed and no further action was taken. A further complaint has been received which is being assessed.”

The situation has overshadowed the SNP's election campaign with the first week of the party's campaign dominated by the matter the party is keen to draw a line under.

Campaigning in Glasgow today First Minister John Swinney would not be drawn on Mr Matheson.

He said: “Parliament has taken its decisions about Michael Matheson, I made clear at First Minister’s Questions yesterday that I accept the conclusions of Parliament and that’s where the matter should end."

READ MORE: The anatomy of a climbdown: Matheson's record Holyrood ban

On the campaign trail yesterday, net zero secretary Mairi McAllan dismissed discussion around Mr Matheson's bill as a "poltical bubble issue".

Ms McAllan claimed that her former cabinet colleague’s attempt to use public funds to cover the cost was not cutting through with the public.

During a campaign visit to Corstorphine in the Edinburgh West constituency, Ms McAllan said that people were not thinking about the Matheson scandal because they were “concerned about issues affecting the money in their pocket, the public services that they seek to use and their desire to get on in life”.

She said it was “a political bubble issue, but one which I now think needs to be put to bed”, adding:

“The man has been handed down the most severe sanction in the history of the devolution era, harsher than issues of sexual misconduct in the past. He has lost his job, there has been no cost to the public purse and no one has been harmed. I think he now needs to be allowed to take the sanction that has been handed and we need to forget about this issue.”

The matter dominated First Minister’s questions yesterday with both Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, and Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, raising the SNP’s response to the sanctions on Mr Matheson. 

Mr Ross asked Mr Swinney how he could “keep his own integrity if he backs a man who has none”. Mr Ross also questioned the SNP leader’s “personal handling of this scandal”.

Mr Swinney told MSPs that the sanctions motion had been amended to reflect his party’s concerns that the process had been prejudiced. 

The SNP amendment argued that a Conservative MSP on Holyrood’s standards committee had spoken out publicly against Mr Matheson, and it declared the process therefore “open to bias” and at risk of bringing “the parliament into disrepute”.

Mr Swinney said the concerns he had raised about this had “now been endorsed by the democratic national parliament of Scotland”.

Following the vote backing his suspension, Mr Matheson apologised but rejected calls by opposition parties to stand down as an MSP saying he looked forward to “continuing to represent the people of Falkirk West, as I have done for many years”.

In a statement released in the minutes after the vote, Mr Matheson said: “I apologise and regret that this situation occurred. I acknowledge and accept the decision of Parliament.

“I also note that Parliament has called for the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body (SPCB) to carry out an independent review of the Parliament’s complaints process to restore integrity and confidence in the Parliament and its procedures, which I hope will be progressed.

“I look forward to continuing to represent the people of Falkirk West, as I have done for many years.”

In its report published last week the SPCB found Mr Matheson breached two sections of the code of conduct for MSPs by making an 'improper' claim under the expenses scheme and failing to ensure his parliamentary iPad hotspot facility was not used for non-parliamentary purposes.

He was also found to have made improper use of the expenses scheme through his failure to undertake a sufficient level of inquiry before submitting the claim and, when he became aware of the true reasons for the bill, he failed to inform the SPCB that his previous assurance that it was used for parliamentary purposes was unsound.

The committee criticised Mr Matheson for failing to notify parliamentary authorities that he was travelling to Morocco. It also criticised him for not notifying the SPCB that he had been made aware of his sons' use of the iPad to watch football matches prior to a statement on November 16.

Responding to The Herald's report that Police Scotland were assessing a new complaint, Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said: “This latest development underlines again John Swinney’s shameful mishandling of the Michael Matheson scandal.

“It’s clearly a matter for Police Scotland to determine whether a criminal offence has been committed. But regardless, we know that in any other walk of life Michael Matheson would have been sacked for wrongly claiming £11,000 and then repeatedly lying to cover his tracks.

“It beggars belief that John Swinney and his SNP MSPs refused to back any punishment for their friend in Parliament this week. Michael Matheson is not fit to be an MSP and should have the SNP whip removed immediately. But John Swinney won’t do that because the SNP always put party before country.

“The public will have the chance to punish the SNP for this on July 4 – and in key seats across Scotland only the Scottish Conservatives can beat them.”

An SNP spokesman said: “This is a matter for Police Scotland.”