Details of Provisions
Paragraph 1 provides that the constituencies of the Scottish Parliament are to be the same as the UK Parliamentary constituencies in Scotland, except that Orkney and Shetland will each have their own constituency. Thus, at the first election to the Scottish Parliament, the constituencies were Orkney, Shetland and the remaining 71 UK Parliamentary constituencies in Scotland. Each constituency returned a single member in accordance with section 1(2) and there were therefore 73 constituency members. However, any reduction in the number of UK Parliamentary constituencies as a result of the amendments made by section 86 will, by virtue of this provision, lead to a corresponding reduction in the number of constituencies for the Scottish Parliament.
Paragraph 2 provides what are the regions for the purpose of the return of regional members and what are the number of regional members to be returned. There are eight regions and seven members returned for each region (sub-paragraphs (1) and (3)). The eight regions are the same as the eight European Parliamentary constituencies which were provided for by sub-paragraph (2) of the European Parliamentary Constituencies (Scotland) Order 1996 (S.I. 1996/1926) even although those European parliamentary constituencies were superseded by the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999 (c.1). The regions and number of members for each region may be altered by an Order in Council under the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, as extended by paragraph 2(4) of this Schedule 1.