A Conservative MSP has vowed to continue refereeing football matches even if it means missing parliamentary business.

Douglas Ross was criticised on Tuesday for missing a meeting of the justice committee to work as an assistant referee at the Sporting Lisbon v Real Madrid Champions League clash in LIsbon.

In September, Ross missed a parliamentary vote on the Scottish Government’s local taxation policies.

MSPs were tied in the vote meaning if he was present and voted with his Conservative colleagues against the government the opposition would have scored a victory.

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The Highlands and Islands MSP will earn as much as £40,000 this year from his work as a football official in addition to the £60,685 he receives for his work at Holyrood.

Ross will also continue to serve as a councillor in Moray until the local government elections next May. He does not accept any salary for his work.

Despite the criticism, Ross has vowed to remain open to future UEFA appointments for midweek matches abroad.

When asked by STV News Holyrood editor Colin Mackay if he will continue, Ross replied: “I hope so. I really do hope so.

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“It is a personal thing for me, I have been doing refereeing for over a decade. I have worked my way up from the ranks of the Forres Academy football pitches on to the national stadiums around the world.”

“It should, hopefully, give people in Scotland a bit of pride that there is a strong Scottish refereeing team officiating at some of the top games around the world”.

Ross says he “continues to do parliamentary work” when he is working abroad and “dealt with many cases” while he was on a recent trip.

The MSP says he thinks the public want politicians “with outside interests”.

While in Portugal he missed the reappearance of the community justice minister Annabel Ewing in front of the committee.

When asked again to confirm if he will miss parliamentary business, he said: “It depends if I get appointed.

“The refereeing job, as is politics, is a performance-related job and if I am not good enough to do that job it will be for others to take me out of the frame for these appointments.

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“But when I do get them, when I am representing Scotland in some of the biggest matches in Europe, then I am proud to do that. I am proud do that as an MSP”.

SNP MSP Ben Macpherson, who is also a member of the committee, says Ross is not playing a “proactive role”.

He said: “He should consider his position whether he can fulfil his duties as a member of the justice committee.

“I think if he is in Portugal or other places around Europe then he is not here in the parliament serving his constituents and he is not here playing a pro-active role, as much as he should be, as a member of the justice committee”.

The Scottish Conservatives expressed their full support for Ross’ intention to continue refereeing.

A party spokesman said: “We are completely supportive of Douglas Ross, both in his role as shadow justice secretary and a world-class football official.

“The SNP should be proud an MSP can operate at that level, not jealously castigating him.”

In February, however, Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser wrote to Nicola Sturgeon about “a number of SNP MPs who are earning considerable sums of money from interests outside of parliament”.

He asked the SNP leader to clarify if this was consistent with the party’s rule that MPs and MSPs treat parliament as their main job.

Fraser stressed in his letter that “I have no problem with politicians having other interests as long as it does not interfere with their ability to represent their constituents”.

The Scottish Conservative press office issued the letter as part of a media release headlined “SNP must come clean on second job rule”.