The public pays for MSPs' £500,000 hotel bill

The public pays for MSPs' £500,000 hotel bill

The Sunday Times has announced that since devolution MSPs have run up hotel bills totalling £500,000. All at the public’s expense. The figures were released under the Scottish Freedom of Information Act only after the Sunday Times forced MSPs to publish them, despite claims that the information should be kept secret because it was “private data” which could jeopardise their “personal security”.

Since 1999, Trish Godman, Labour MSP and deputy presiding officer in Holyrood, has run up the largest hotel bill of all - £23,001 - despite living in Glasgow. Bill Aitken, a Conservative MSP for Glasgow who spends two nights a week in a hotel in Edinburgh, claimed hotel expenses totalling £18,951 for the same period.

MSPs run up £500,000 bill on hotels since devolution (Sunday Times, 24 April 2005)