THE SNP’s defence of former health secretary Michael Matheson is playing “straight out of Boris Johnson’s Tory sleaze playbook,”Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has said.

The Falkirk West MSP is facing a 27-sitting day suspension from Holyrood over the near £11,000 iPad data roaming bill he initially claimed had been for constituency work.

He U-turned before it later emerged his teenage sons had used the iPad as a hotspot to watch football during a family holiday to Morocco around Christmas 2022.

Mr Matheson claimed he was unaware of the truth until the story hit the headlines but has been sanctioned by the standards, procedures and public appointments committee for breaching the MSP code of conduct.

Today Scottish Labour will seek to amend a motion to call for him to be removed from office in a right of tecall. 

Mr Sarwar said: “SNP leader John Swinney and the SNP are using the Boris Johnson and Conservative Party playbook — putting personal relationships before the integrity of Parliament.

“John Swinney is trying to defend the indefensible by backing Matheson who was found to have attempted to misuse £11,000 of public money.

“It's completely and utterly unacceptable.

“This is a political party that has used zero-hour contracts to deliver their election leaflets and is in the midst of a police investigation.

“In place of SNP and Tory sleaze, Scottish Labour is dedicated to cleaning up politics — starting by introducing a Right to Recall in the Scottish Parliament so that the people can hold politicians to account and Holyrood is not held to a lower standard than Westminster.”

The Scottish government has been contacted for comment.