Prisoners: Voting Rights

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I am afraid I cannot agree with the noble Lord. A number of countries have argued that we should implement the judgment to ensure that the authority of the court and the power of the convention are upheld. However, we also know that a number of other countries—members of the Council of Europe—sympathise with our position. They recognise that, on the one hand, we want to respect the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, as we do in other cases, but, on the other, this parliamentary sovereignty is the essence of our democracy. We have no reason to suppose that our Parliament thinks any differently from when this whole issue was last debated in another place, whereby a Back-Bench Motion to enfranchise prisoners was resoundingly defeated by a margin of 234 to 22 on a free vote.

[Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers (CB)]

My Lords, I served on the Joint Committee on the Draft Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill and we made our recommendations over three years ago. They included this comment in relation to parliamentary sovereignty:

“We agree with the evidence of Lord Mackay of Clashfern, that the principle of parliamentary sovereignty is not an argument against giving effect to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights. Parliament remains sovereign, but that sovereignty resides in Parliament's power to withdraw from the Convention system; while we are part of that system we incur obligations that cannot be the subject of cherry picking”.


Will the noble Baroness kindly remind the Prime Minister of the need for this country to comply with its obligations under international law?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I think the House is showing that there is a difference of opinion on this subject. I hear what the noble and learned Lord has said, but I must also make clear that at a Committee of Ministers human rights meeting in December 2016 my right honourable friend in another place, the Minister of State for Courts and Justice, Sir Oliver Heald MP, focused on this issue of prisoner voting and said that the UK would provide further information on its planned approach in December 2017. This is a complex—I would rather call it a difficult—issue and not one that we are ignoring. We are considering it and will be there in December when the Council of Europe will review the UK’s ban on prisoners voting.