Voting by Prisoners

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this important debate. Before the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) leaves the Chamber, may I add my sympathies to those already expressed to her and her constituents? I must also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) on obtaining the debate, and the Backbench Business Committee on giving time for it. I will try to keep my comments short given how many hon. Members want to contribute, but the fact that so many do is indicative of the interest in the House and throughout the country on this matter.

I was elected to be the voice of my constituents in this place, and many of them have contacted me to express their concern about the matter. They are firmly, to a man and a woman, against any move to give votes to prisoners, and I am wholeheartedly in agreement with them.

Prison should fulfil three functions: protect the public, rehabilitate the prisoner and punish them. This debate is most concerned with its punishment function. Depriving someone of their liberty is in itself the strongest of punishments. There is the obvious physical restriction—the inability to move freely—but there is rightly another aspect to the punishment of a prison sentence: through the actions that have deserved such punishment, prisoners set themselves apart from civil society in an important way. The right to vote is an important part of a citizen’s rights; it is not something to be taken lightly. In fact, it is an indication of full participation in society. Losing the right to choose a democratic representative is an important part of the punishment, but it is also recognition of the nature of the punishment, which is more than the inability to go where one pleases.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I am following my hon. Friend’s argument closely and totally support it. Does she agree that a legal anomaly that should perhaps be considered in this debate is the fact that prisoners serving a year or less in prison have the right to stand for election to this House, even though they do not have the right to vote?

[Karen Bradley]

That is a good point, and I am sure that we will come back to it.

Removal of the right to vote does not mean that prisoners are not represented. Indeed, I am sure that every Member of this House has had reason to act for a constituent in prison, by ensuring that appropriate rehabilitative courses are available or that inappropriate conditions are addressed, for example. Therefore, it would be wrong to say that prisoners are not represented. They must be treated fairly, and they are represented here. However, representation is a separate issue from the right to choose the representative. As well as a mark of full participation in society, the right to vote is a hard-fought privilege.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Does she agree that if it is the will of this House that prisoners should not gain the vote, there must be no question of any payments of compensation?

[Karen Bradley]

I agree wholeheartedly.

It is not only particularly difficult to accept that the will of Parliament should be challenged on this matter of all things in the way we find it challenged today, it is also a direct insult to those men and women who fought, both politically and physically, to extend the franchise; it is an insult to the principled men who fought for the right to vote in the 19th century to grant the right to vote to serious criminals; and it is a terrible insult to suffragettes, such as Emmeline Pankhurst and Emily Wilding Davison, the latter, as Members will know, having hid in this House to make her case.

[Lorely Burt]

I am following closely the hon. Lady’s remarks about our foresisters, the suffragettes. They were imprisoned, so by the logic of her argument she obviously would not like them to have the vote while in prison either.

[Karen Bradley]

I am not sure that I agree with the hon. Lady’s argument. The fact is that the suffragettes were fighting for women’s right to vote, something of which she and I are welcome beneficiaries. It would be a great insult to their memory to allow prisoners who have abused women to enjoy the same rights that they suffered to earn.

As Members of this House, we are privileged to represent our constituents and should recognise the value that the electorate place on that right. Giving the vote to prisoners who have committed serious offences equates them with the rest of society. Of all people, we should support the importance of the vote. It is no physical or psychological hardship, but a mature part of society’s position. While a person is in prison, they should not have the right to vote.