Prisoners’ Right to Vote

Debate between Dennis Skinner and Mark Harper

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am afraid that my hon. Friend has not followed this case very closely. If the Human Rights Act disappeared today, that would make no difference. The decision was made by the European Court in Strasbourg. British courts upheld our domestic law, which is why the decision was appealed to the Strasbourg Court. Even if the Human Rights Act disappeared tomorrow, I am afraid that the judgment would still stand.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that the Murdoch scribblers and other tabloid writers are busy writing the headline, “Tories soft on crime, and soft on the perpetrators of crime”?

[Mr Harper]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is so focused on what the Murdoch press is doing. The Government are considering how to comply with the law, just as the hon. Gentleman’s Government had to comply with it. The Government whom he supported accepted that the law had to be changed—[Interruption.] Or rather I should say, as has just been pointed out to me, the Government whom he sometimes supported. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and others consulted on detailed proposals to change the law, but they just never got round to doing anything.