Neil Gray misled parliament over football matches, Tory MSP claims

Neil Gray "knowingly misled" the Scottish Parliament for months over records of football match trips, an MSP has claimed.

Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr said Gray had "clearly violated the ministerial code" over his timing of an apology to MSPs.

The health secretary used government cars to attend football matches and said he was on official business while doing so.

Gray - who has the support of First Minister John Swinney - initially said minutes had been taken at "all" such events, but later said "that is incorrect" and apologised for what he called an "inadvertent error".

But Central Scotland MSP Kerr raised an urgent question on the matter, asking when the Scottish Government learned of the discrepancy.

Speaking in the chamber, Kerr said the information had come to light thanks to a Freedom of Information response in December, but Gray had not corrected the record at the time. Kerr said: "Neil Gray had knowingly misled this parliament for months and did nothing about it, despite the ministerial code being crystal clear that he was duty bound to correct the record, and this shows nothing but contempt for this parliament."

He went on: "At a time when the NHS needs proper leadership, how can the public be expected to have any confidence in a health secretary who is unable to be completely honest with this parliament and the people of Scotland that we represent?"

Speaking for the government, parliamentary business minister Jamie Hepburn said Gray had that day been "meeting with representatives of the royal colleges of the various medical professionals to discuss how we can continue to improve our National Health Service", adding:  "That is exerting leadership in his role as cab sec [cabinet secretary] for health."

Hepburn said Gray had realised his error and "fronted that out, and accepted he'd done that and apologised to the chamber".

Earlier in the day, Swinney defended his health secretary, saying he had uttered "one word too many" when previously addressing his football attendance before parliament.

Swinney said: "In the course of the statement, he had set out the accurate position twice and then on the third occasion he said one word too many, and that word was 'all'. It was a mistake and he described it as an inadvertent error, and I would accept that."