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Welsh MPs have realised they're about to be culled - courtesy of the Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill - and they will gather tomorrow morning to protest their fate.

In its drive to reduce the number of parliamentary seats by 50, and equalise constituency sizes, the bill would cut the number of Welsh MPs by a quarter - bringing a number of careers to an abrupt end.

Last week a report by the warned that the resulting re-jigging of constituency boundaries could lump together disparate communities separated by mountains - or create a vast super-constituency covering sparsely-populated central Wales - where, they quip, MP would probably need a personal helicopter to get around.

But one of the report's major gripes is that the government did not convene the Welsh Grand Committee, the convocation of all Welsh MPs, to discuss the effects of the bill. Lack of consultation in Wales, and indeed in Scotland has been a major issue throughout the consideration of the bill, and the defeat of assorted amendments to remedy the complaints has rubbed salt into the wounds.

And so annoyed is , that she has discovered a suitable substitute - if the Grand Committee cannot be convened, and that is in the gift of the Secretary of State, Cheryl Gillan, she will summon the Welsh Parliamentary Party. This is a gathering of, er, all the Welsh MPs. The distinction is that the meeting is not a parliamentary proceeding. But they will be able to give their views - and Ann Clwyd hopes they will be able to agree a resolution to put to the government as well.

The Welsh Parliamentary Party is a seldom-seen denizen of Westminster - it was last convened in 1996 to harry the then Welsh Secretary, William Hague, and seems to have its origins in an attempt to deal with the economic crisis of the 1930s. It will break cover again tomorrow (Wednesday) morning - and it may yet sink its teeth into the secretary of state.

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