I am confused about the number of Scottish MPs at Westminster.

No. Members of parliament sit in Westminster and members if the scottish parliament sit in holyrood. We've created another layer if beurocracy that only benefits proffessionals politicians. I actually like UKIPs ideas of scottish MPs sit in Westminster fir two weeks and then holyrood. It would saveillions each year in wage bills.

No. Members of parliament sit in Westminster and members if the scottish parliament sit in holyrood. We've created another layer if beurocracy that only benefits proffessionals politicians. I actually like UKIPs ideas of scottish MPs sit in Westminster fir two weeks and then holyrood. It would saveillions each year in wage bills.

They are elected separately. The MSPs elected for Holyrood are a different set of people to the MPs elected in Scotland for Westminster. I think the constituencies are different too because they use a different system for elections.



Another alternative is to have a devolved English parliament/assembly (or several for different regions) and then drastically cut the numbers in Westminster. But having the same people share their time between Westminster and their devolved parliament/assembly makes sense too. England would have to be devolved in some way though, even if that effectively means there is an English parliament operating out of the same premises (i.e. when the MPs for the other nations are away, they only discuss English only matters).

That seems like an awful lot of expense for being people doing largely the same job. Plus, it can't be helpful to the people of Scotland voting for Westminster MPs one year, before having to go through the whole rigmarole again the following year to elect their MSPs.

That said, it will indeed benefit the Conservative Party if Scotland votes for independence, as the number of Labour MPs returned in a general election is disproportionate to those in a Scottish Parliamentary election. Strange situation.

Your figures for MSPs are wrong, in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections the SNP won 69 seats and Labour 37. But basically you're right - there are 59 MPs (Members of the UK Parliament) who represent Scottish constituencies, and 129 MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament). The constituencies are different obviously, since there are more MSPs than Scottish MPs.

When people in Scotland have a problem or concern, do they go to see their local MP or MSP? It must be so confusing to live in two constituencies and have two different representatives.

Well, you've got MEPs and councillors as well as MPs...

We also don't just have constituency MSPs, but seven MSPs for every region. So you've got eight MSPs representing you. I suppose it's a matter of picking who is responsible for what - but ultimately you're probably right: your average punter has very only the vaguest ideas of what issues are reserved to the UK Parliament and which are devolved to Holyrood.

Talk about unnecessary bureaucracy.

That's not really the result of constituencies, that's the top up regional list.

When the Scottish Parliament was created, it has identical constituencies to Westminster's 72 in Scotland, except that it broke Orkney and Shetland into two. Then they had a boundary change at Westminster level, moving to 59 constituencies in Scotland. The Scottish Parliament boundaries stayed the same for many years after that.