Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Act 2004

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Acts of Parliament of predecessor states to the United Kingdom
Acts of Parliament of the Kingdom of England to 1601 Acts of Parliament of the Kingdom of England to 1659 Acts of Parliament of the Kingdom of England to 1699 Acts of Parliament of the Kingdom of England to 1706 Acts of Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland Acts of Parliament of the Kingdom of Ireland
Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom
1707–1719 \| 1720–1739 \| 1740–1759 \| 1760–1779 1780–1800 \| 1801–1819 \| 1820–1839 \| 1840–1859 1860–1879 \| 1880–1899 \| 1900–1919 \| 1920–1939 1940–1959 \| 1960–1979 \| 1980–1999 \| 2000–Present
Acts of the Scottish Parliament
Acts of the Northern Ireland Parliament
Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly
Orders in Council for Northern Ireland
United Kingdom Statutory Instruments
Church of England Measures

The Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Act 2004 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that amends the Scotland Act 1998 which established the Scottish Parliament. The Act received Royal Assent on July 22, 2004.

Before it was amended by this Act, the Scotland Act 1998 provided for the constituencies of the Scottish Parliament (known also as Holyrood constituencies) to be the same as those for the United Kingdom Parliament (Westminster), except that Orkney and Shetland were separate constituencies. There are currently 73 constituency Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) and 56 regional additional-member MSPs. (See Scottish Parliament constituencies and regions.) The Scotland Act also provided that the Boundary Commission for Scotland when reviewing the Westminster constituencies should use the same (larger) electoral quota as used in England. This has reduced the number of Scottish Westminster constituencies from 72 to 59.^[1] That in turn would have resulted in a reduction in the number of Holyrood constituencies and, because of the requirement in the Scotland Act for proportionality between constituency and regional additional-member seats, a pro rata reduction in the number of regional additional members.

As a consequence of this linkage in the Scotland Act there would therefore have been an automatic reduction in the size of the Scottish Parliament when the number of MPs at Westminster representing Scottish constituencies reduced at the 2005 general election.

In December 2001 the then Secretary of State for Scotland launched a public consultation seeking views on the case for retaining or ending the linking of Westminster and Holyrood constituency boundaries as is provided for by the Scotland Act, in the light of the experience gained from the operation of the Scottish Parliament. The majority of respondents supported retaining the present size of the Parliament, as is now provided for by this Act.