Voting by Prisoners

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the logical position were there such a right to vote, as there is in some cases, is that the prisoner’s home address would be the place where they would vote? That is how we work as MPs and how a voting system would work for prisoners.

[Mr Walter]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. What he describes would be a logical and proportionate way to proceed, but many prisoners had no fixed abode before they came into prison, so where would they then “reside” or have their vote registered?

Withdrawing from the convention would be counter-productive, if not dishonourable. I appreciate that the Hirst ruling has raised legitimate constitutional questions that go right to the heart of the Court’s credibility and I also recognise that the Court is not perfect and is struggling to cope with a massive backlog of cases. It is in need of serious reform.

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[Mr McCann]

I am just about to go into that. I have asked them, because I wanted to test my beliefs and whether my view that it would be wrong to give prisoners the vote would be taken on board by the public who elected me. The reaction I got from people was very similar. After I explained the issue, there was a pregnant pause because people thought that I was about to give them the punch line to a joke, rather than tell them about an issue that we were going to debate in Parliament. Then a look of disbelief came across their face at the very thought of giving criminals the right to vote.

I was lucky enough to visit Sandhurst earlier this week along with other hon. Members as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme. We saw young men and women being prepared to be the officers of the future. In about six months’ time they will be serving in Afghanistan. I took that opportunity to ask those fine young men and women, as a litmus test, whether they believed it was right to give prisoners the vote. To an individual, they said no; it is very important to listen to them as well.

It is interesting to listen to the people who come to the debate from the other side. Liberty argues that denying prisoners the vote undermines the Human Rights Act, but I believe the reverse is true. The Howard League for Penal Reform suggests—ludicrously, in my opinion—that extending the right to vote to prisoners would be a natural progression of the ECHR. I disagree with that completely: it is an example of how risible an argument can become when it is over-egged.

What should we say to people who think we are over-hyping this issue when we say that rapists, paedophiles and murderers will get the vote? I looked up three examples of people who have been imprisoned for less than four years. Are we going to give the vote to Corey Smith, aged 19? He was sentenced to just under four years for threatening to stab commuters on the Central line in a three-week crime wave in December. Should we give the vote to the Mazambi family, three of whom were convicted for less than four years for stealing £500,000 from Comic Relief? That money should have gone to good causes. What about the motoring case of Jonathan Francis McGonagle, aged 23? He was sentenced to less than four years for killing a 25-year-old pedestrian while being drunk in charge of a car. Are they the type of people who should be given the vote?

[Simon Hughes]

If I make a speech today, I am not going to argue for a blanket right to vote for prisoners, but what does the hon. Gentleman say about the fact that in most other countries that subscribe to the Council of Europe the same view is not taken and the right to vote is given to some prisoners? What is the difference between the British culture and the rest of Europe that means that people just a few miles away have such very different views?

[Mr McCann]

Because we are different. Northern Europeans’ view of life can be somewhat different to that of southern Europeans. They are entitled to their point of view, as are we; as Members of this House, we are entitled to take decisions on these matters. I dismiss the right hon. Gentleman’s point because this is about interpreting the European convention on human rights and how it is incorporated into UK law.

I was mindful of the words of Louis D. Brandeis, who was an associate justice of the Supreme Court in the United States of America. That gentleman said:

“If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.”

That is an important point, which we should remember.

In my opinion, laws that command the support of Members of the House are being manipulated in unacceptable ways. It is perverse to argue that those who break our laws, and who have been incarcerated for doing so, should be given the right to vote, and there is a burden of responsibility for Members in this House to speak out. I have done so today and I will be backing the motion.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I am pleased to be able to say that I support the motion. I am disappointed that my amendment was not selected, because several hon. Members have raised the spectre of what this step will cost, and we cannot have that elephant in the room. We cannot grandstand today or make large speeches and not accept that someone, somewhere is looking at the detail of what is said and seeing whether they can bring us to heel with threats. Hanging over us is the fact that prisoners around the country will be studying what is said and queuing up to test the strength of our resolution.

Once somebody has been convicted of a crime so serious that they are jailed—not just any crime—they go to prison and their voting right is suspended. It is not removed; it is suspended until it is considered right for them to leave jail. If we pick an arbitrary figure of one, two or three years, or certain categories of prisoner, it is my absolute belief that people will test the reasonableness of that decision. That is a deeply unsettling thought. The litigation will not stop because we have decided to draw the line in the sand at that particular point just because some other countries have done so.

I absolutely concur with the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann): what other countries choose to do is completely up to them. They have found the level of reasonableness that is acceptable to them and to their population, and to the constituents who voted for them to make those decisions. We are here to represent our constituents. I am not a lawyer; I do not know the legalese, but it depresses me profoundly when I hear that we, a sovereign Parliament, are looking for wriggle room. Why are we looking for wriggle room? We should be able to say that this House’s view is that we do not believe that anyone who is convicted of a crime so serious that they are going to jail can then exercise the right to vote.

In case there is a question whether we should be making that decision, I would like to read a quote that appeared yesterday on the Prison Reform Trust website. Juliet Lyon advocates:

“Instead of listening to MPs…the coalition government should listen to the advice of experienced prison governors and officials, past and present bishops to prisons and chief inspectors, electoral commissioners, legal and constitutional experts and most other European governments.”

I say no. The people whom the coalition Government should listen to are the elected Members of this House, who serve thousands and thousands of law-abiding citizens, most of whom—not all, because I believe Liberal Democrats would argue to the contrary—find it repugnant that the Mr Hirsts of this world can believe, as he says, that the decision is

“going to be a great leap forward once the prisoners get the vote. They will start voicing their opinion and they’ll start getting changes that they deserve, whereas before they were getting kicked and they’re last in the queue when things were being dished out. But now they’ll be on an equal footing to everybody else because their vote counts.”

No, they are not on an equal footing. They have lost many of their liberties as a result of being in jail, and this right is something that they should also lose.

[Simon Hughes]

I have listened to my constituents for 27 years. I am quite clear that the majority would be in favour of restoring the death penalty. I do not accept that view. We do not have to accept the view of the majority. There is a perfectly reasonable view that, actually, the minority are sometimes right.

[Mrs Main]

And I respect the right hon. Gentleman for his own judgment on that matter, but we are talking today not about getting rid of someone’s life but about suspending their voting rights while they are incarcerated at Her Majesty’s pleasure, because 12 good men and true—and women—decided that their crime was sufficiently bad, and the judge agreed with them, to send them to jail. Bringing the argument about the death penalty into this debate does not help us one jot.

We should be saying, as part of the motion, that if the crime is so serious that someone is sentenced to jail, that is the benchmark. Other countries may have set a benchmark of a year, two years or three years, but our benchmark is perfectly just and reasonable.

If we leave this elephant in the room, leading to compensation, costs and judgments against us, costing our taxpayers money, we will be treading a path that most of our constituents would find incomprehensible; and if today we cannot debate that amendment because it was not selected, I propose that it be brought back as a motion before the House. I took comfort from the Attorney-General when he said he hoped there would be further debates on the subject, and I think that is a crucial debate. We should vote today in the certain knowledge that the will of House is that we do not extend voting rights to prisoners who are incarcerated, and in the next debate we must make it clear that we do not believe they should be compensated for that loss at all.

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[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

The right to life; the right to freedom of expression; the right to assembly; the right not to be tortured; the right not to be treated inhumanely—all English rights for which generations have fought against both tyrants at home and foes abroad. No one in this country, past, present or, I trust, future, has ever voted for prisoners’ right to vote. No one has ever voted for article 3 of protocol 1 of the European convention on human rights or the judgment in the Hirst case on giving prisoners that right.

If that so-called right is passed into English law, I believe it will have a profoundly damaging effect on public confidence in the English judicial system, which is meant to be in tune and in sympathy with the instincts of the British people, not an affront to those instincts. If the law is passed, the public will say that giving prisoners the right to vote is nonsense. They will say that the law is an ass, and an ass it is when it so flagrantly and brazenly violates the principles of rationality, decency, fairness and common sense.

It is completely unacceptable to my constituents, and I am sure to the constituents of all Members here today, that a criminal who has violated law to such an extent that he or she is incarcerated and has their freedom withdrawn for a period of time should be given the right to vote in a democratic election. It would give the British public the impression that the system has more respect for the criminal than for the sensitivities and interests of the victim, which are far too often overlooked. That is what the public think, and it is what I think. It would also give the impression of a Parliament out of touch at best, and at worst the poodle of a European court. I do not consider that defensible.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter), who is no longer in his place, said that no one elects judges. That is true, but at least in the case of English judges, British public opinion can be, and often is, brought to bear on them when they take decisions that are completely out of tune with it. Take the case of Lord Denning, who in effect was told to resign and retire early when he made what were judged inappropriate comments. Pressure is brought to bear on British judges. [Interruption.] If the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) wants to intervene, he can do so. Is he saying that British public opinion does not weigh on British judges?

[Simon Hughes]

I cannot remember the exact details, but to my recollection, Lord Denning served as a judge in the highest courts of the land until he was over 80. He was one of the best-regarded judges of the last century, particularly because he was a judge in tune with the common person, not distant from him.

[Mr Ruffley]

The right hon. Gentleman really does not know his history. If he reads the Denning autobiography, he will discover that Lord Denning was forced out early because he said that the composition of jury trials in south London led to perverse judgments.

[Simon Hughes]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Ruffley]

There is no point in the right hon. Gentleman shaking his head—he should read the history. I am sure the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) agrees with me.

The fact is that European judges have no accountability to the British public in the way that English judges do, and nor do Strasbourg judges have any accountability to the House. I suggest that the Strasbourg Court is the difficulty. Lord Hoffmann—a liberal by any definition—said something very important on that. He said:

“In practice, the Court has not taken the doctrine of the margin of appreciation nearly far enough. It has been unable to resist the temptation to aggrandise its jurisdiction and to impose uniform rules on Member States. It considers itself the equivalent of the Supreme Court of the United States, laying down a federal law of Europe.”

He concluded, and I agree:

“The problem is the Court; and the right of individual petition, which enables the Court to intervene in the details and nuances of the domestic laws of Member States.”

In November, I asked the Justice Secretary about the possibility of withdrawing from the European convention on human rights, so that we do not repeat these ridiculous exercises in which we are asked, for example, to consider whether prisoners should have the right to vote. He responded by saying that a proposal to withdraw was not in the coalition agreement—it was settled Conservative party policy for most of the previous Parliament to withdraw from the convention—but he also promised me that a commission would consider drawing up a Bill of Rights and the thorny question of the convention.

I should therefore like to ask the Attorney-General a specific question. Will he give an undertaking that the commission referred to in the coalition agreement will be set up by the end of this year? Will he consider reforms—if not full withdrawal from the convention—to the Court to improve its personnel and the competence of its judges, which is seriously in question? Will such reforms ensure that those judges are told to give wider discretion to English courts when decisions are made on matters affecting English people?

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[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He has put on record what I know to be his long-standing interest in the Chagos islands, and I hope that a positive outcome will be secured there.

The second reason why I am speaking in favour of more prisoners being given the right to vote is that it is the appropriate course of action. Prisoners have committed a crime. Their punishment is to lose their liberty. That is fair and just. What is then gained by seeking to inflict civil death on them? In what way does that benefit the victim? Does it increase the chances of rehabilitation? What is the logic behind the ban? We do not remove prisoners’ access to health care, nor do we stop them practising their religion, so why should we impose a blanket ban on prisoners’ right to vote? Surely we have moved on from the Victorian notion of civil death.

[Simon Hughes]

Nor do we prevent prisoners from continuing to have obligations outside—for example, in relation to any assets they own or income they receive, on which they have to pay taxes. All the countries where prisoners are allowed the vote have the additional advantage that people seeking election have to go into prisons and understand life from the inside, rather than commenting only from the outside.

[Tom Brake]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend and many others here have engaged with prisoners, and that he will have found, as I have, that there is a great degree of interest in what is happening outside the prison walls. It is therefore entirely appropriate that we should seek that engagement.