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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I, too, wish you, Mr Benton, and all Members present a happy new year. I also wish myself a happy birthday, although I note that no one offered that unto me. I congratulate the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing the debate. It is right that we should have the debate here and, as several Members have said, that there should be a proper debate in the Chamber so that many of the issues can be elaborated at greater length, so I hope that that will happen.
I do not wish to disturb the equilibrium between myself and the Minister, but I must excoriate him slightly, because thus far there have been only written ministerial statements on the matter. The policy should have been announced in the Chamber, not by written ministerial statement, and I say that because the Minister said on 2 November 2010:
“when decisions have been taken they will be announced to the House at the Dispatch Box in the usual way.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 722.]
That is not what happened. A written ministerial statement was snuck out—I never know what the past tense of sneak is—or sneaked out.
Chris Bryant
Put out is less pejorative, and I want to be pejorative on this point. The statement was snuck out the day before Parliament adjourned for the Christmas recess. That is an inappropriate way to deal with Parliament, let alone with the politics of making a significant constitutional change in this country.
I am afraid that on this occasion I agree with neither my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), nor our new knight, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), whom I congratulate on his knighthood. I believe that the tradition that prisoners should be unable to vote is older than the Forfeiture Act 1870, because prior to that, the property qualification was so significant that, in practice, prisoners would have been unable to vote anyway. Merely referring to the 1870 Act, although that was the point at which the idea was qualified in statute, is irrelevant. It is an old tradition and a fine one. I think that when one forfeits the right to liberty, one should forfeit the right to vote.
However, I disagree with those who have said that we should leave the European Court of Human Rights. I think that David Maxwell Fyfe was a pretty odious Home Secretary, but I agree with those who argue that he did a good job at Nuremberg in trying to ensure that human rights were protected across Europe. It is difficult for us to argue with Russia that it should comply with the European Court of Human Rights in cases such as that of Sergei Magnitsky if we do not comply ourselves.
I also believe that the Government have been entirely wrong to gold-plate the provisions that are being brought forward. If the cut-off comes at four years, that will mean that people who have committed many very serious crimes, including violent crimes and crimes of a sexual nature, and electoral crimes for that matter, will be able to vote, which I think is inappropriate. That will mean that close to 30,000 people in prison will be able to vote. Notwithstanding the comments that other Members have already made, I think that there will be logistical problems in various areas in the country, which I will move on to in a moment.
The proposals are far more generous than the arrangements in other countries. The hon. Member for Kettering referred to several countries but not to Belgium, where the line is drawn at four months. I wonder whether the Government simply got the words “months” and “years” wrong, because opting for four months would allow them to comply with the Court. In Austria the requirement is one year. In France there is an element of judicial decision making on who gets the franchise—I think that the Government intend to introduce that here—as the court decides whether someone should be deprived of the right to vote as part of the sentencing. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) commented earlier on how the French approached the creation of the Court in the first place and that their system arose because the Napoleonic code had always stipulated that. Of course, 13 countries still have complete bans, although it must be said that they are not countries that we would hold up as exemplars of liberal and civilised societies that comply with human rights.
I have 10 questions for the Minister, although I realise that he may be unable to answer all of them. I hope that he will write to me on any that he is unable to answer today, as the deputy Prime Minister has not responded to any of the letters that we have written to him on the subject—it has been quite some time now and I am looking forward to those replies. First, the current prohibition on votes for prisoners was introduced through primary legislation in the Representation of the People Act 1983, and amended by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Can the Minister confirm that the amendments to statutes to enable prisoner voting will be done though primary legislation, rather than secondary legislation, so that it can be amended on the Floor of the House? Secondly, were we to proceed with a one-year ban, rather than a four-year ban, can he confirm that that would meet the requirements of the Court and that, therefore, the four-year ban is entirely of the Government’s choosing?
Thirdly, can the Minister confirm that more than 28,000 prisoners will be given the vote under the proposals, including around 6,000 who have committed violent crimes and 1,800 who have committed crimes of a sexual nature? Fourthly, the written ministerial statement states that prisoners will be able to vote in an area where they have a local connection. That seems, contrary to the remarks made earlier by several Members, to be a rather loose way of determining where they vote. What will happen if a prisoner wants to be registered in their prison, rather than in their home, or if they are registered in the place where they last lived but someone else is now living there? Frankly, they might not want someone who is serving time in prison to be registered to their home address. What provision have the Government made to ensure that that will not affect householders in their credit rating and in other ways? Will prisoners be entitled to anonymous registration, or will they be included in the electoral register, including details of their last known address, and what provisions will be made for candidates to be able to canvass prisoners?
As I understand it, the Government intend to allow judges to make specific recommendations on depriving people of the vote. On what grounds will a judge be entitled to remove the vote? Following the comments made by other Members, are there particular crimes that, while they might be subject to relatively short sentences of less than four years, should in all cases still see the perpetrator banned from voting? In particular, will the Government ensure that judges receive guidelines on when it will be expected that the vote be removed, and will those guidelines be made available when a Bill comes before the House? Will mentally disordered offenders or prisoners detained in mental health hospitals awaiting sentencing be entitled to vote under the Government’s proposals? I hope that the Minister can answer many of those questions. Many Members are understandably angry about out inaction in the past, but I must say that I prefer our inaction on the matter to the Government’s action thus far.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing the debate, particularly on getting it as a kind of reserve option, and thank him for his generous remarks at the beginning of his contribution. As ever, of course, he and I will not fall out, even if we end up disagreeing. I would like to take the opportunity, as everyone else has, to wish all hon. Members a happy new year, although that does seem rather a long time ago.
I shall set out what the Government have announced and then try to deal with as many of the questions as I can. I will respond to questions which I believe are of interest to as many people as possible, and write to hon. Members about those that remain which I can not answer at this point. I will place a copy of the letter in the Library so that Members can see the Government’s responses.
It is worth starting with a bit of background because hon. Members have mentioned it—I will get through this quickly. We have already mentioned that some prisoners—those on remand, for example—have been able to vote for some time. The bar on prisoners who are serving a sentence dates back to 1870, and successive Governments have maintained the position that those who have broken their contract with society by committing an offence and are imprisoned should lose their right to vote.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering opened the debate in a perfectly helpful way by quoting my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who made it clear that he does not want to make this change. To be frank, it is not something that I want to do, and I believe that many Government Members would rather not do it, but we do not have a choice. We have a legal obligation. To answer my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), the proposals are not a sop to anyone. The European Court of Human Rights made a ruling in the Hirst case, and we are legally obliged to comply with it.
It is worth reminding ourselves what the Court actually said in the Hirst case. It said that the existing bar on convicted prisoners—the blanket ban—was contrary to article 3 of Protocol No. 1 of the European convention on human rights. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr Offord) referred to Mr Hirst. Although the ruling was given in his case, under the proposals that we will put before the House, he would not have been entitled to vote when he was in prison because he committed a serious crime and was sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment.
We in this country seem blessed—that is not really the right word. The most odious criminals appear to be the ones who run off to the European Court of Human Rights. Another odious criminal who took the Government to court—the judgment was announced before Christmas—also had been convicted of serious crimes.
The Government are following three principles in their approach. The first goes to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). We have to meet our legal obligations, but we want to go no further than that. Secondly, we want to ensure that the most serious offenders are not given the right to vote. That is why we did not say that there would be no line, that the limit would be entirely up to judges. We want to ensure that there is a line, so that anyone above that length of sentence would not be able to vote. We recognise that the most serious offenders should not be able to vote.
Mr Harper
Let me make a little more progress. I am conscious that Members have raised many questions, and I want to try to deal with some of them rather than stack up new ones.
The third principle is to prevent the taxpayer from having to pay successful claims for compensation. One of the problems we have is that even if the compensation in an individual case is not significant, we in this country are blessed—again, that is probably not the right word—with lawyers who are assiduous, if there is money on the table, in running around and getting lots of people to sign up for cases under no win, no fee rules. Various Members have mentioned that there are already 2,500 cases pending. One can be certain that if there were a successful case for compensation, lawyers would quickly go around prisons to sign up prisoners for legal actions on the basis that there might be £1,000 compensation on the table. The Government would be faced with thousands and thousands of cases. We estimate that compensation in an individual case might be around £750 to £1,000, but multiply that by the thousands and thousands of prisoners who would bring cases if there were money on the table, and we would be looking at significant sums for the taxpayer. The one thing that would be worse than making these changes in the law would be giving hard-earned taxpayers’ money to some of those criminals. I shall take my hon. Friend’s question.
Mr Jackson
I thank the Minister for that explanation, but his argument would carry much more weight if Frodl v. Austria had been the last substantive case in the European Court of Human Rights on this issue. The ruling was very prescriptive and said, in effect, that the majority of prisoners had to have the vote. However, it was not the last case. As I made clear earlier, the last case was Greens and M.T. v. the United Kingdom, and paragraphs 112 to 114 of its ruling specifically made it clear that the Government had a range of options on which they could consult. It is not a question of the Government having to comply with the arbitrary limit of four years; that simply is not true.
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend makes a helpful point by referring to the Greens and M.T. judgment. This comes down to what several Members have said about whether we have the option of doing what the previous Government did, which was nothing. I am afraid that we do not. In that judgment, the Court gave the UK Government six months from the date that the judgment becomes final to introduce proposals. I can say to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that there are various ways of dealing with it, but the Government will introduce primary legislation in the House. That should deal with questions raised by several Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who is a member of the Backbench Business Committee. Proposals for primary legislation will be put before the House, and Members will have an opportunity to debate them fully. We will not try to think of a different way to implement the judgment, but we want to ensure that we have a debate in the House.
Mr Harper
In terms of the timetable, we have to introduce proposals, not pass them. The Government’s responsibility is to introduce the proposals before 23 August this year; in other words, before the House rises for the summer recess. The Court has suspended the 2,500 or so cases of people claiming damages on the basis that we will introduce proposals within the time limit. If we fail to do so, the cases will be revived and there will then be a serious risk that the Government will be faced with paying damages.
Let me deal with some other questions. To respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering—this is his debate—the problem would not be fixed by somehow getting rid of the Human Rights Act 1998. Even if we were to sweep it away tomorrow, we would still be a party to the European convention on human rights and the ruling would stand. The debate on the Act is important, but it is not relevant to this matter.
My hon. Friend asked whether the UK was being singled out. We have to act because British prisoners took cases to the Court, on which it has ruled. Some of the other countries that still have a blanket ban have not been put in that position. If no prisoners had brought a case against the UK Government, we would not be acting. We are acting only because of the legal judgment. The hon. Member for Rhondda said that it had been his Government’s preference to do nothing. It is our preference to do nothing, but we face a legal obligation.
Mr Harper
I, too, congratulate my newly knighted hon. Friend. He put his case in a measured and thoughtful way, as did the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). Apart from what she said at the beginning of her remarks—that this is, indeed, a legal judgment and that we are obliged to implement it—I did not agree with her arguments, and I am afraid that the Government and I do not agree with what my hon. Friend said either.
Let me try to answer some of the questions that were raised by several Members, including the hon. Member for Rhondda. He accused the Government of gold-plating the provisions. We absolutely have not done that. We set a limit which we believe is the minimum required to comply with our obligations. Moreover, in contrast with the previous Government, who were proposing to enfranchise prisoners for all elections, we have said that we will make a change only for those elections where we are legally obliged to do so: the Westminster and European elections. We will not do it for local elections or referendums. Importantly, we will not do it for elections for police and crime commissioners, or for mayors. We will do what is legally necessary and no more. That was not what the previous Government were going to do. They proposed enfranchising prisoners for all elections. That would have perhaps had some of the consequences for local elections that Members have mentioned.
Also, we will ensure that prisoners cannot register to vote at the prison. It would clearly be inappropriate to have significant number of voters at prisons able to influence the results of elections. It is also worth saying, as my final point—
Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)
Order. That concludes the debate. We must move on to the next one.