Prisoners (Voting Rights)

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

May I wish you a very happy new year, Mr Benton, and offer my grateful thanks to Mr Speaker for giving me permission to lead today’s debate?

May I also wish the Minister and his shadow a very happy new year? The Minister is a personal friend, and I have always had high regard for him, both before he was elected to this place and since he took up his present position in the Government. I know, therefore, that we will not fall out on a personal level over this issue, but it is my job as a humble Back Bencher to stand up and to speak up for my constituents, whose view is that this country should not give prisoners the right to vote, and it is my job to hold the Government to account on that.

Here is a question for hon. Members. Who said

“Frankly, when people commit a crime and go to prison, they should lose their rights, including the right to vote”?

He also said:

“It makes me physically ill even to contemplate having to give the vote to anyone who is in prison”—[Official Report, 3 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 921.]

The answer is my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and I could not agree more with him. The vast majority of people in this country would also back him in those sentiments. One difference between the Prime Minister and myself, however, is that he is actually in a position to do something about this issue. We need some backbone—we need a hardened spine—if we are to take on the European Court of Human Rights and resist its judgment.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

In making that statement about public attitudes, is the hon. Gentleman aware that research carried out for the previous Government in 2009 showed that only a quarter of respondents favoured a total ban on prisoners having the right to vote?

[Mr Hollobone]

The previous Government’s two consultations, which they did, by the way, to avoid having to make a decision—they kicked the issue into the long grass for five years—involved a pathetically small number of respondents. Given that there were fewer than 100 respondents, the statistical relevance of those consultations is almost meaningless. If I asked my constituents whether prisoners should be given the right to vote, the vast majority would say that they should not. I strongly suspect that if the hon. Lady spoke to her constituents, she would get a very similar reaction.

I also want to pray in aid the words of the now Attorney-General when he was in opposition:

“The principle that those who are in custody after conviction should not have the opportunity to vote is a perfectly rational one. Civic rights go with civic responsibility, but these rights have been flagrantly violated by those who have committed imprisonable offences. The government must allow a parliamentary debate which gives MPs the opportunity to insist on retaining our existing practise that convicted prisoners can’t vote.”

I absolutely, 100%, agree, and I hope that this morning’s limited debate will be a warm-up act for a proper debate on the Floor of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) for bringing this matter to debate. I agree with him and other hon. Members that it is right to have a proper debate.

I suspect I will not be the most popular speaker this morning, but I want to place on the record that I am in favour of giving prisoners the right to vote. I am in favour of it in this situation, first, because we are required to comply with a Court order, and it is impossible for us to run a criminal justice system around the basis of the rule of law if we then decide which laws and legal obligations we as a country will choose to follow and which we will not.

Secondly, I am in favour of it because I believe it is morally right that prisoners should have the opportunity to vote.

[Mr Offord]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

I will in a moment. I want to expand the three bases of my argument and then I will be happy to take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.

I believe it is morally right that prisoners should have the right to vote. I do not accept that they lose all aspects of citizenship in losing their liberty as a result of a custodial sentence. I fundamentally disagree with those who feel that prisoners’ fundamental human rights should be weakened. In a decent and civilised society it is right that we treat all, including prisoners, with respect.

My third argument is that there is potential to see the right to vote in the context of a process of rehabilitation. Cleverly managed, it could contribute to the reintegration of prisoners in our society. Therefore, there may be some efficacy grounds for accepting a right to vote.

I am happy to take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention now.

[Mr Offord]

The hon. Lady says she feels it is wrong for the United Kingdom to decide which laws it will implement as a result of the European judgment. However, only last night at the Oldham by-election, the Labour candidate decided that she did not wish to debate with one of the other candidates, whom she had removed by the police from a public meeting. The hon. Lady cannot have it both ways. If we as a country should accept all the laws, the hon. Lady and her potential colleagues should do the same.

[Kate Green]

I am not aware of the breach of law by the Labour parliamentary candidate in the Oldham by-election. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can enlighten me later.

The hon. Member for Kettering said—I suspect rightly—that many in my constituency would be disconcerted to hear me making the arguments I do today. That is why I strongly support his call and that of others for a full and informed discussion to take place in this House, because we have not properly considered the evidence or, indeed, the purpose of our criminal justice system and the role that the right to vote or withdrawal of it plays. I hope that this debate will make some contribution to that analysis and information, but I consider that we need a far fuller understanding in the country as a whole.

I have taken an interest in this subject because I served as a magistrate for 16 years. I have sentenced people to custody and have never done it lightly. I am mindful that it entails not just a loss of liberty but puts at risk people’s jobs, homes and family life. Hence, magistrates follow a rigorous decision-making process in selecting an appropriate sentence. With 16 years’ experience on the bench, I cannot think of a single sentencing objective that removing the right to vote from prisoners sentenced to custody would have helped to achieve.

[Dr Coffey]

What are the hon. Lady’s thoughts on the Government’s proposal to offer judges and magistrates the opportunity to remove the vote as part of the sentence?

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that issue, which I want to explore in my remarks. The hon. Member for Kettering was right to say that there is more than one way to skin a cat. I am not suggesting that a blanket rule that applies before or after a four-year custodial sentence is the most appropriate way to go, but it is a step in the right direction and one on which I would like to see us build.

I would like to say a little more about how we might see restoration of the right to vote as a positive by enabling prisoners to fulfil their responsibilities as citizens, and how that might in a small way—I see scepticism on faces opposite me—contribute to reducing reoffending, which is surely the prime purpose of the criminal justice system. If we fail to give prisoners any stake in our society, it is difficult to see why they should wish to reintegrate into that society—why they should feel any sense of obligation to mutual rights, dignity and respect when we do not afford that to them. I see an opportunity alongside this new legislation to improve education and rehabilitation in our prisons.

When I raised the matter with the Secretary of State at Justice Question Time before Christmas, he expressed scepticism as to whether prisoners would take advantage of the right to vote. However, before last year’s general election the Prison Reform Trust participated in a debate with prisoners in a local prison. It reported that prisoners were intensely engaged in debating the political matters of the day: not just criminal justice but a wide range of issues that would affect them, their families, communities and society as a whole—a society, of which, like it or not, they remain a part.

Prisoners are rightly recognised as being among the most disadvantaged in terms of social inclusion prior to receiving custodial sentence. We should be looking to take steps to improve their social inclusion. What happens to them while they are in prison undoubtedly has a role to play.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

No; I am just coming to my conclusion.

I conclude with two questions which I hope the Minister will address. First, what plans does he have for a programme of prisoner education and engagement that takes advantage of the reintroduction of the right to vote, within the context of prison education—educating prisoners in their civic responsibilities—and how that will support their planned reintegration into the community? Secondly, I would like to follow the points raised by the hon. Member for Kettering in questioning the rationale for introducing a cut-off point at four years. That seems to suggest degrees of citizenship: one is more or less of a citizen, depending on the nature of one’s sentence. I would be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s view on whether discretion for judges might be applied more realistically if a blanket right to vote were put in place that gave judges the opportunity in certain cases to say that such a right was not appropriate and should be removed.

I am pleased that, after many years, we are seeing some modest steps to reintroduce a right to vote for prisoners. I support the direction of travel the Government are taking. As other Members have said, I very much hope we will move to an informed and rational debate about the effect of the measures now being brought forward.