There will be no move to cut the number of MSPs, the government has announced.

Under existing legislation there is a link between the number of members of the Westminster and Holyrood parliaments.

And with post-devolution moves to reduce the number of Scottish MPs, the change would also have affected the number of Scottish parliament seats.

But the link between Westminster and Edinburgh will be broken under the new Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Bill to be introduced this session.

It means that when the number of Scottish constituencies is reduced from 72 to 59, there will still be 129 MSPs.

A consultation carried out last year found that a majority of respondents were in favour of retaining the current size of the Scottish parliament.

The Scotland Office said that both the Holyrood parliament and the executive were "strongly in favour" of the bill.

The legislation came as the SNP mounted a fresh bid to halt a separate reduction in the number of Scottish MEPs.

Following EU enlargement the number of Scots sent to Brussels will be reduced from eight to seven.

"Scotland has little enough influence in Europe as it is. We have no seat on the Council of Ministers, no commissioners and already fewer members of the European parliament than we would have if we were an independent member state," said Nicola Sturgeon.