Prisoners (Voting Rights)

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

As on so many issues, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are lots of Select Committee sittings on Tuesday mornings, and many hon. Friends and Opposition Members who would like to be here to voice their views are unable to do so.

We are talking about this issue because the European Court of Human Rights has decided once again to interfere in Britain’s domestic affairs.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Before my hon. Friend gets to the European Court of Human Rights, which was based on something written by David Maxwell Fyfe, will he please tell us when prisoners lost the right to vote and for what offence?

[Mr Hollobone]

Before I respond to that intervention, I congratulate my hon. Friend on his recent knighthood, which is extremely well deserved. His many years’ experience in this place make him far more qualified to talk about these issues than I, but my understanding is that the British Parliament discussed these issues when it passed the Forfeiture Act 1870. Now, 1870 was 80 years before the European Court of Human Rights was established in the 1950s. British parliamentarians decided that it was appropriate for prisoners not to be given the vote way before the concept of a European court was even thought about.

By the way, there would be no human rights in any part of Europe today were it not for the brave actions that this country took on its own in 1940, and some of the European Court’s judges should remember that. We are the mother of Parliaments and we have a long and proud history of democratic thought processes, debate and decision. Frankly, the British people are sick and tired of being lectured to on human rights issues by unelected judges in this pseudo-European court.

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[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. That is why I support the call for Parliament to debate the matter, and we are starting that process today.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

Our hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), has been very helpful. Parliament debated the matter in 1967, and gave prisoners the right to vote in 1967.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He may or may not be referring to something that I was about to say, which is that what the Government propose is not necessarily a radical departure. I understand that remand prisoners, people in prison for contempt of court and fine defaulters held in prison are eligible to vote. The principle is already established that some prisoners are entitled to vote.

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[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

First, I want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on bringing this issue to Parliament and I hope that there will be a debate on it in the main Chamber too. I agree with him that we are the people who should make decisions. Secondly, I want to thank him for his kind words about my new year honour; in thirty years’ time, I hope to be here to congratulate him on achieving the same thing. [Laughter.]

If I may, I do not plan to give way because there are two quotations that I want to give before developing one or two arguments of my own. The first quotation is from a Home Secretary:

“The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country. A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the State, and even those of convicted criminals against the State, a constant heart searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts towards the discovery of curative and regenerating processes, and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man—these are the symbols which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored up strength of a nation and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it.”—[Official Report, 20 July 1910; Vol. 19, c. 1354.]

That Home Secretary was Winston Churchill, speaking in the Commons in 1910.

The second quotation comes from an American judge, so some of the expressions that he uses and some of the experiences that he refers to may not be identical to those in this country. He is Judge Dennis Challeen, and he is quoted in a document called “Making It Right” that was published in 1986, talking about prisoners:

“We want them to have self-worth...

So we destroy their self-worth.

We want them to be responsible...

So we take away all responsibilities.

We want them to be part of our community...

So we isolate them from our community.

We want them to be positive and constructive...

So we degrade them and make them useless.

We want them to be non-violent...

So we put them where there is violence all around them.

We want them to be kind and loving people...

So we subject them to hatred and cruelty.

We want them to quit being the tough guy...

So we put them where the tough guy is respected.

We want them to quit hanging around losers...

So we put all the “losers” in the state under one roof.

We want them to quit exploiting us...

We put them where they exploit each other.

We want them to take control of their own lives, own their own problems,

and quit being a parasite ...

So we make them totally dependent on us.”

I hope that the future debates that we have in this House will not be about the effect of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and I do not actually want them to be about the European convention on human rights. The issue is not whether we join the Court; it is whether we think that the points put in the European convention on human rights by people in this country are points to which we want to adhere.

To my mind, the dominant issue is how we got into this pickle in the first place. The Forfeiture Act 1870 lifted a lot of the problems of people who are convicted; it stopped all their land and property being taken away, and it stopped their wives and children from becoming dependent on the state. It happened to include, under the heading of “treason” in section 2:

“If any person hereafter convicted of treason…”

should be disqualified from

“being elected, or sitting, or voting as a member of either House of Parliament, or of exercising any right of suffrage or other parliamentary or municipal franchise whatever within England, Wales, or Ireland.”

Incidentally, this measure did not apply to Scotland so the idea that there is United Kingdom symmetry on this issue is not right.

When I was allowed to intervene on one of my hon. Friends—my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake)—I referred to the part of the Act that came from the modification in the 1960s. Following a criminal law review process, from 1967 prisoners were able to vote.

[Philip Davies]

Not these ones.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

Prisoners were able to vote.

[Philip Davies]

Not these ones.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I said that I was not planning to take any interventions; that applies whether they are made from a sedentary position and repeated, or made by a Member who is standing up and said for the first time. [Laughter.]

As it happened, in the mid-1960s, unless someone had established a proxy beforehand, I do not think that there were provisions for establishing proxies or for voting by post, so that is a change. Nevertheless, that modification takes away one of the difficulties of how voting by prisoners could be arranged now.

I want to put a question to my hon. Friend the Minister; if he does not know the answer now, I will be very happy to receive it in a letter later on. Is there a duty at present to register prisoners to vote, until we change the registration laws to enable individual registration, and even then does that duty apply? Indeed, one question is about whether people can vote; the second question is whether they appear on the register, whether they are qualified or disqualified. I would be very grateful to know from the lawyers in the Minister’s Department, or through him from the lawyers, whether there is presently a requirement on a prison governor to register a prisoner on the electoral register and, if so, whether that prisoner is registered as being disqualified from voting in the prison or disqualified from voting from what would have been their normal address, as it were, if they were, say, an overseas elector.

The second question is about voting itself. I hope that the future debates that we have on this subject are about why it is an extra punishment or provision that someone who is convicted and then, as part of their sentence, has their liberty taken away, has their right to vote taken away as well. I am not terribly interested at the moment about the boundary problem or whether there should be a bar for those sentenced to more than four years or for those convicted of certain offences; I think that that is a subsidiary set of issues. I believe that the key point is whether we can actually say to people who are convicted, “We want to take away your liberty, but we want you to be a member of society”. That is the essential issue. That is why we try to teach people in prison to read, to work and to be interested in things around them, and why we want them to have some sympathy and empathy for the feelings of others, whether victims or otherwise.

I end by asking a question that most people do not ask themselves. Each week, how many people in this country commit a serious criminal offence for the first time, one for which if they are caught and convicted they could be sent to jail for six months or more? I will give way just once to anybody who can give me the answer.

One would have thought that, dealing with crime and punishment, we would all be interested in knowing the answer to that question. The figure is about 1,800 people a week, who are mostly male and under the age of 30, who for the first time are convicted of an offence for which they could be sent to jail for six months or more. So the figure is presumably above 1,800 a week. A third of all men under the age of 30 have been convicted of an offence for which they could be sent to jail for six months or more. I think that the fact that most of the dispositions are not to send those men to jail is a good thing, although some of my hon. Friends and others in other parties might disagree. I think that we are talking about something that is rather common, and the provisions for allowing prisoners to vote are entirely separate from the issue of how we reduce the number of criminals.

Having said that I would end, I will say it again. When I was Minister with responsibility for painting white lines in the middle of roads, which is quite a dangerous position, rather like my position in this debate, it was estimated that young men drove cars after having consumed more than the legal limit for alcohol—which was a socially acceptable, body-bending, illegal habit— 2 million times a week. Within 2.5 years, that figure appeared to have decreased to 600,000. We cut that crime, which killed 1,200 people a year, by two thirds in 2.5 years with no change in law, sentencing or enforcement.

If we are seriously interested in reducing the number of victims, which is why we are interested in reducing crime, and in having fewer criminals, the way to do it is not by having long arguments about whether to give prisoners the vote; I would vote to do so straight away. I would also try to spend more time on effective reduction of the amount of crime in this country. I hope that this debate will be one of the first steps to doing so.

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[Mr Harper]

In terms of the timetable, we have to introduce proposals, not pass them. The Government’s responsibility is to introduce the proposals before 23 August this year; in other words, before the House rises for the summer recess. The Court has suspended the 2,500 or so cases of people claiming damages on the basis that we will introduce proposals within the time limit. If we fail to do so, the cases will be revived and there will then be a serious risk that the Government will be faced with paying damages.

Let me deal with some other questions. To respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering—this is his debate—the problem would not be fixed by somehow getting rid of the Human Rights Act 1998. Even if we were to sweep it away tomorrow, we would still be a party to the European convention on human rights and the ruling would stand. The debate on the Act is important, but it is not relevant to this matter.

My hon. Friend asked whether the UK was being singled out. We have to act because British prisoners took cases to the Court, on which it has ruled. Some of the other countries that still have a blanket ban have not been put in that position. If no prisoners had brought a case against the UK Government, we would not be acting. We are acting only because of the legal judgment. The hon. Member for Rhondda said that it had been his Government’s preference to do nothing. It is our preference to do nothing, but we face a legal obligation.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

That does not make it right.

[Mr Harper]

I, too, congratulate my newly knighted hon. Friend. He put his case in a measured and thoughtful way, as did the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). Apart from what she said at the beginning of her remarks—that this is, indeed, a legal judgment and that we are obliged to implement it—I did not agree with her arguments, and I am afraid that the Government and I do not agree with what my hon. Friend said either.

Let me try to answer some of the questions that were raised by several Members, including the hon. Member for Rhondda. He accused the Government of gold-plating the provisions. We absolutely have not done that. We set a limit which we believe is the minimum required to comply with our obligations. Moreover, in contrast with the previous Government, who were proposing to enfranchise prisoners for all elections, we have said that we will make a change only for those elections where we are legally obliged to do so: the Westminster and European elections. We will not do it for local elections or referendums. Importantly, we will not do it for elections for police and crime commissioners, or for mayors. We will do what is legally necessary and no more. That was not what the previous Government were going to do. They proposed enfranchising prisoners for all elections. That would have perhaps had some of the consequences for local elections that Members have mentioned.

Also, we will ensure that prisoners cannot register to vote at the prison. It would clearly be inappropriate to have significant number of voters at prisons able to influence the results of elections. It is also worth saying, as my final point—