The West Midlands should get an extra European Parliament representative, Business Voice WM has urged.

Now it has written to the Electoral Commission making the case for a further MEP.

If successful, as a result of the June election results, Anthea McIntyre, a Conservative and a Federation of Small Businesses member, would appear to be the prime candidate.

Following the European Council of Ministers summit in November and the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, the UK has been allocated an additional European Parliament place.

And BVWM believes the West Midlands has the best case over other electoral regions.

In a letter to Electoral Commission chief executive Peter Wardle, BVWM executive director James Watkins points out that the West Midlands has a population of 5.3 million.

He goes on: "The West Midlands business community would urge you to decide that the region, in the interests of fairness and transparency, should gain this additional MEP place.

"Despite the West Midlands representing approximately 10 per cent of the UK population, it currently only has six MEPs. This does not seem to be in the interests of equity when, for instance, Scotland, has six MEPs despite an electorate of around 3.8 million while London has eight MEPs with an electorate of 5.2 million people.

"There is no doubt in our judgment that the West Midlands - in terms of the ratio between the number of MEPs and population size - is under represented. This is an aggravating factor for the businesses and people of the West Midlands at a time when the region needs to be adequately represented by elected representatives at the European Parliament while this difficult economic downturn continues."

Ms McIntyre is a partner in MCP Systems Consultants, an independent consultancy specialising in management information systems.