The Scottish politician who cost taxpayer £100k after submitting over 900 questions in 1 month

Douglas Lumsden, an MSP for the North of East Scotland, submitted a range of queries, covering topics including flagpoles, light bulbs and jars of honey in the Holyrood shop. Another question asked about the cost of electric hand dryers on the parliamentary estate.

Mr Lumsden last month submitted 987 written questions to officials, more than half of the total asked by all 129 MSPs. Written questions are used by MSPs to obtain information on the Government and parliament for the public.

Questions included asking about the sale of Glasgow Prestwick Airport and 29 queries on the operations of the Crown Office.

Another asked: “How many sachets of (a) sauce and (b) salt and pepper (i) it and (ii) its suppliers have procured, and the average cost for each item in each of the last ten years.”

The former co-leader of Aberdeen City Council also wanted to know how many times the Parliament’s beekeepers had visited to care for the beehives in the gardens.

Some reports suggested some of his questions may have been generated by artificial intelligence. In 2008, it was estimated that answering a single parliamentary question cost £98.51.

Michael Marra, Scottish Labour’s finance spokesman, said: “This a flagrant abuse of taxpayers’ money. Given the content of many of these questions, this is clearly for no purpose other than that of the amusement of the Tory member.

“This sum of money could have paid the wages of two nurses in our NHS for an entire year. Instead the Tories are happy to waste taxpayers’ cash, the paid time of hard-pressed officials and other MSPs who are trying to get on with the job of representing their constituents.

“But abusing this system by asking the internet to generate spurious questions is deeply childish and shows a concerning lack of judgment.”

Mr Lumsden defended his questioning. He said: "Written questions are a legitimate way of scrutinising this failing SNP Government.

"While I have spoken with my staff about the correct way to submit these questions, many of them ensured we were able to uncover that energy minister Gillian Martin has not met with any pylon campaign groups, and that there is a lack of provision of forensic pathologists in Aberdeen."