Pictured above: David Collier

Business Voice WM has stepped up its campaign to win an extra European Parliamentary seat for the West Midlands.

Following a "very helpful response" from the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, Mark Harper, it has again written to Electoral Commission chief executive Peter Wardle urging him to see the merits of the case.

In the wake of the European Council of Ministers summit in November and ratification of the Lisbon Treaty across the EU as of December 1, the UK was allocated an additional Euro MP.

The question is - which region will get it.

And BVWM says it should go to the West Midlands "in the interests of fairness and transparency".

Pointing out to Mr Wardle that the West Midlands has an electorate of over 4 million people, BVWM board member and National Farmers Union regional director, David Collier, states: "Despite the West Midlands having approximately 10 per cent of the UK population, it currently only has six MEPs representing it. 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 people 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."

And the letter calls on him to award the MEP place accordingly.

The move is part of a concerted campaign on the issue by BVWM.

It first challenged the Electoral Commission in December and then in May took the matter up with Justice Secretary Ken Clarke asking that he rectify the discrepancy.