Prisoners’ Right to Vote

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

Is my hon. Friend not being a little unfair to the previous Government, who, after all, had done a lot of detailed work on how they would eventually implement this provision? Is it not fairly clear that if the Government are saying to somebody, “You must be in prison, and you must abide by the law and the decision of the court,” they can hardly add, “But we will ignore the decisions of the courts”?

[Mr Harper]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. The previous Government accepted that the law needed to be changed and brought forward a number of proposals to enfranchise prisoners, but they simply did not have the gumption to do anything. As ever, they left it behind for somebody else to clear up.