Voting Eligibility (Prisoners)

Debate between Roger Gale and Lord Grayling

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I have no evidence of such issues. Some people have suggested that if Parliament chooses to exercise its right of sovereignty, the UK would become a pariah state, but I must say very clearly that I simply do not accept that. I believe that Parliament has the right to exercise its sovereignty. It will be for Parliament to decide in this situation whether it wishes to exercise that sovereignty, but I do not believe that if it chooses to do so, Britain will somehow turn into a nation with an appalling human rights record. Our human rights record stands comparison with anyone’s.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

As a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I have had the opportunity to discuss the issue with senior members of the European Court of Human Rights in a particular context. There are 47 member states of the Council of Europe and very many of them—France is one; Malta is another—hold prisoners for very long periods without trial in clear breach of the convention on human rights, about which the ECHR chooses to do precisely nothing. Would it not be a good idea for the ECHR to concentrate on enforcing article 5 and such matters rather than meddling, as the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) has said, in matters that are not even within its remit?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is the problem; at the moment, we have a Court that is drowning in hundreds of thousands of cases in areas that the originators of the convention would never have considered relevant to what they were creating. That has taken the judges in Strasbourg away from the fundamental principles that they are supposed to be there to protect, so I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.