Next Scottish Parliament election

Next Scottish Parliament election

6 May 2021
All 129 seats to the Scottish Parliament 65 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   Leader Nicola Sturgeon Ruth Davidson Kezia Dugdale Party SNP Conservative Labour Leader since 14 November 2014 4 November 2011 15 August 2015 Leader's seat Glasgow Southside Edinburgh Central Lothian (List) Last election 63 seats 31 seats 24 seats   Fourth party Fifth party   160x160px Leader Patrick Harvie and Maggie Chapman Willie Rennie Party Scottish Green Liberal Democrats Leader since 17 May 2011 Leader's seat Glasgow (List) (Harvie) North East Fife Last election 6 seats 5 seats
First Minister before election Nicola Sturgeon SNP Elected First Minister TBD

The next Scottish Parliament election is due to be held on Thursday 6 May 2021 to elect 129 members to the Scottish Parliament. It would be the sixth general election since the parliament was established in 1999.

Five parties had MSPs in the fifth parliament: Scottish National Party (SNP) led by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish Conservatives led by Ruth Davidson, Scottish Labour Party led by Kezia Dugdale, Scottish Greens, led by their co-conveners Patrick Harvie and Maggie Chapman, and the Scottish Liberal Democrats, led by Willie Rennie.

Date

Under the Scotland Act 1998, an ordinary general election to the Scottish Parliament would normally have been held on the first Thursday in May four years after the 2016 election, i.e. in May 2020. This would clash with the proposed date of the next United Kingdom general election. In November 2015, the Scottish Government published a Scottish Elections (Dates) Bill, which proposed to extend the term of the Parliament to five years. That Bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 25 February 2016 and received Royal Assent on 30 March 2016, setting the new date for the election as 6 May 2021.

The date of the poll may be varied by up to one month either way by the monarch, on the proposal of the Presiding Officer.

If Parliament itself resolves that it should be dissolved, with at least two-thirds of the Members (i.e. 86 Members) voting in favour, the Presiding Officer proposes a date for an extraordinary general election and the Parliament is dissolved by the monarch by royal proclamation.

It does not necessarily require a two-thirds majority to precipitate an extraordinary general election, because under the Scotland Act Parliament is also dissolved if it fails to nominate one of its members to be First Minister within certain time limits, irrespective of whether at the beginning or in the middle of a parliamentary term. Therefore, if the First Minister resigned, Parliament would then have 28 days to elect a successor (s46(2)b and s46(3)a). If no new First Minister was elected then the Presiding Officer would ask for Parliament to be dissolved under s3(1)a. This process could also be triggered if the First Minister lost a vote of confidence by a simple majority (i.e. more than 50%), as s/he must then resign (Scotland Act 1998 s45(2)). To date the Parliament has never held a confidence vote on a First Minister.

No extraordinary general elections have been held to date. Any extraordinary general elections would be in addition to ordinary general elections, unless held less than six months before the due date of an ordinary general election, in which case they supplant it. The subsequent ordinary general election reverts to the first Thursday in May, a multiple of four years after 1999.

Election system, seats, and regions

Main article: Scottish Parliament constituencies and regions from 2011

The total number of Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) elected to the Parliament is 129.

The First Periodical Review of the Scottish Parliament's constituencies and regions by the Boundary Commission for Scotland, was announced on 3 July 2007. The Commission published its provisional proposals for the regional boundaries in 2009.

The Scottish Parliament uses an Additional Members System, designed to produce approximate proportional representation for each region. There are 8 regions, each sub-divided into smaller constituencies. There are a total of 73 constituencies. Each constituency elects one MSP by the plurality (first past the post) system of election. Each region elects 7 additional MSPs using an additional member system. A modified D'Hondt method, using the constituency results, is used to elect these additional MSPs.

The Scottish Parliament constituencies have not been coterminous with Scottish Westminster constituencies since the 2005 general election, when the 72 former UK Parliament constituencies were replaced with a new set of 59, generally larger, constituencies (see Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Act 2004). The boundaries used for the Scottish Parliament elections were then revised for the 2011 election. The Boundary Commission also recommended changes to the electoral regions used to elect "list" members of the Scottish Parliament, which were also implemented in 2011. The Westminster constituency boundaries are due to be revised, with the intention of reducing the total number of seats to 600 and equalising the number of voters in each constituency.

Target seats

Below are listed all the constituencies which require a swing of less than 5% from the 2016 results to change hands.

SNP targets

Rank	Constituency	Winning party 2016		Swing to gain	SNP's place 2016	Result
1	Dumbarton		Labour	0.17	2nd
2	Edinburgh Central		Conservative	0.90	2nd
3	Ayr		Conservative	1.00	2nd
4	Aberdeenshire West		Conservative	1.28	2nd
5	East Lothian		Labour	1.45	2nd
6	Edinburgh Southern		Labour	1.47	2nd
7	Dumfriesshire		Conservative	1.70	2nd
8	Eastwood		Conservative	2.22	2nd
9	Galloway & West Dumfries		Conservative	2.27	2nd
10	Edinburgh Western		Liberal Democrats	3.73	2nd

Conservative targets

Rank	Constituency	Winning party 2016		Swing to gain	Con place 2016	Result
1	Perthshire South and Kinross-shire		SNP	1.97	2nd
2	Edinburgh Pentlands		SNP	3.68	2nd
3	Angus North and Mearns		SNP	4.21	2nd
4	Aberdeen South and North Kincardine		SNP	4.26	2nd
5	Moray		SNP	4.30	2nd
6	Edinburgh Southern		Labour	4.74	3rd
7	Perthshire North		SNP	4.90	2nd

Labour targets

Rank	Constituency	Winning party 2016		Swing to gain	Labour's place 2016	Result
1	Eastwood		Conservative	2.56	3rd
2	Edinburgh Central		Conservative	4.19	3rd