A TORY member of the Scottish Parliament who used artificial intelligence rather than his own to table questions could have cost taxpayers as much as £185,000.

MSP Douglas Lumsden ran up the bill using AI to generate over 1,300 questions to ministers, according to Scottish National Party MSP Kenneth Gibson.

Mr Gibson is urging parliamentary authorities to review the rules to rule out a repeat of abuses such as Mr Lumsden’s, which in some months amounted to more than half of all the questions tabled in Holyrood.

“Mr Lumsden’s hypocrisy is staggering,” he said. “In recent weeks, he has denounced Scottish ministers for the cost of travelling to the US to discuss vital matters such as whisky tariffs and Brazil to tackle climate change.

“Yet the cost was a fraction of what Mr Lumsden has cost taxpayers by deluging the Scottish Parliament with over 1,300 AI-generated questions in only four months! You have to wonder if he even found time to read the answers.”

Answering a written question costs £138 on average.