Highlands and Islands

The Highlands and Islands is one of the eight electoral areas for the Scottish Parliament through which 7 of the 56 Additional Members System MSPs are elected.

It covers an area including all of the Highland, Shetland, Orkney and Western Isles local authority areas, as well as most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local authority areas.

It is the largest of the 8 electoral areas in terms of size, but the smallest in terms of population and electorate.

Scottish Parliament Vote, 1999

Political Party	Votes	Share of Vote (%)	% Change	List Seats Won
SNP	55,593	27.73	N/A	2
Labour	51,371	25.47	N/A	3
Lib-Dems	43,226	21.43	N/A	0
Conservatives	30,122	14.94	N/A	2
Greens	7,560	3.75	N/A	0
I Noble (Independent)	3,522	1.75	N/A	0
SLP	2,808	1.39	N/A	0
HIA	2,607	1.29	N/A	0
SSP	1,770	0.88	N/A	0
Robbie the Pict (Independent)	1,151	0.57	N/A	0
J Campbell (Independent)	712	0.35	N/A	0
NLP	536	0.27	N/A	0
A Robertson (Independent)	354	0.18	N/A	0

MSPs Elected:

Conservative - Jamie McGrigor , Mary Scanlon
Labour- Peter Peacock, Maureen MacMillan , Rhoda Grant
SNP - Winnie Ewing, Duncan Hamilton

See also:

Scottish Parliamentary Election, 1999

Scottish Parliament Vote, 2003

Political Party	Votes	Share of Vote (%)	% Change	List Seats Won
SNP	39,497	23.43	-4.30	2
Labour	37,605	22.31	-3.16	2
Lib-Dems	31,655	18.78	-2.65	0
Conservatives	26,989	16.01	+1.07	2
Greens	13,935	8.27	+4.52	1
SSP	9,000	5.34	+4.46	0
UKIP	1,947	1.16	N/A	0
Robbie the Pict (Independent)	1,822	1.08	+0.51	0
CP	1,768	1.05	N/A	0
SLP	1,617	0.96	-0.43	0
SPA	793	0.47	N/A	0
A Robertson (Independent)	353	0.21	+0.03	0
Rural Party	177	0.11	N/A	0

MSPs elected:

Conservative - Jamie McGrigor , Mary Scanlon
Labour - Peter Peacock, Maureen MacMillan
Green - Eleanor Scott
SNP - Jim Mather, Rob Gibson

See also:

Scottish Parliamentary Election, 2003

The Highlands and Islands is also a colloquial term used to describe the Scottish highlands along with the islands off their coast.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise , for example, exists to stimulate the economy of the whole Highland and Islands region and to support local companies in the area.