KIRKCALDY and Cowdenbeath MP Roger Mullin could be set to lose his seat under proposals to redraw Scotland's election boundaries.

The Boundary Commission for Scotland have published initial plans for a new map of UK Parliamentary constituencies that would see the country's 59 seats reduce to 53 – and Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath would face the axe.

If the proposals are approved the seat, which Mr Mullin won from Labour in last year's General Election, would be abolished and absorbed into the constituencies of Ochil and South Perthshire and Glenrothes, held by his fellow SNP MP's Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh and Peter Grant.

The redrawn boundaries would create two new constituencies of Kinross-shire and Cowdenbeath, and Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy.

Under the current boundary map, Hill of Beath, Crossgates and Mossgreen are represented within the Dunfermline and West Fife constituency, a seat held by the SNP's Douglas Chapman.

The proposed changes, however, would see them become part of the new Kinross-shire and Cowdenbeath constituency but the plans have been slammed by Mr Chapman, who criticised the UK Government for reducing the number of Scotland's MPs while "the number of unelected Lords is growing exponentially".

He said: "This is the initial proposal and there is a considerable period of public consultation to go through. So there could be further changes following that consultation.

"Clearly the SNP would be unhappy at any reduction in the number of any democratically elected Scottish MPs, especially at a time when the number of unelected Lords is growing exponentially.

"There are now over 850 unelected Lords and if the UK Government wanted to save money, the real saving could be made by reducing them.

"With the political uncertainty of Brexit and the adoption of what would be former European matters, the workload of an MP and MSP is only going to increase."

Mr Mullin overturned a majority of 23,000 to win Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath from Labour in last year's General Election as the SNP swept to victory in 56 of Scotland's 59 seats.

The UK Parliament wants to cut the number of constituencies across the country from 650 to 600 and Lord Matthews, deputy chair of the Boundary Commission for Scotland, said: "New rules mean that the number of constituencies in Scotland will reduce from 59 to 53, and each mainland constituency must have broadly the same number of electors. We have set out proposals which do that and are, we believe, a good implementation of the rules set by Parliament.

"It is the start of a process, and we now want to hear the views of the public. We will reflect on responses to the consultation and make changes if needed where the legislation allows us to do so. We will be running a number of public events across the country in the coming weeks and hope that voters will make their views heard."

A consultation on the proposals will run until January 11 2017 and members of the public can receive more information and submit their views at www.bcs2018.org.uk.

The commission will make their final recommendations in September 2018 ahead of the 2020 General Election.

The Times contacted Mr Mullin for comment but he was unable to respond before going to print.