Voting by Prisoners

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. and hon. Members who have succeeded in securing this debate, but may I start by busting one myth? We have heard the mantra, “These are unelected and unaccountable judges.” I am not sure that I can recall any elected judges in this jurisdiction or in most other jurisdictions. Judges who are unelected are not that unusual. However, the judges in question are elected and I voted for one just two weeks ago. The new judge representing Portugal was elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and 18 Members of this Parliament are mandated to vote for judges in the European Court of Human Rights. A number of them have been here for this debate, including my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) and for Devizes (Claire Perry) and others who were in Strasbourg two weeks ago.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Is there actually a choice of candidates or is there literally the same number of candidates as there are votes?

[Mr Walter]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has raised that matter, because the next point that I was going to make was that a sub-committee vets the candidates. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) is one of the members of that sub-committee who successfully rejected a slate of three candidates put forward by Portugal four months ago, and Portugal had to go back to find some candidates who were acceptable to us. However, may I say that the candidates who come forward are not always of the highest calibre and the quality of judges in the Court has to be taken on board?

For more than 200 years, our criminal justice system has been guided by a simple and sound formula: if someone commits a serious crime, they forfeit the right to freedom. When someone breaches the contract with society they compromise their right to participate in civic processes. When someone breaks the laws of the land, they have no say in who makes those laws or governs this country. So it follows—I support this—that convicted prisoners automatically lose the right to vote. I believe that that is a proportionate and proper response following conviction and imprisonment.

Yet, today, we find ourselves debating whether prisoners should have the right to vote: whether a principle enshrined by our Parliament, endorsed by successive Governments and supported by the public, should be rescinded by this European Court ruling. I believe that the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights was wrong. I share many colleagues’ unease at the potential sea change that it could bring about. The notion that those who knowingly place themselves outside the rule of law could have electoral sway equal to that of law-abiding citizens strikes me as illogical and unfair.

My constituency is home to Guys Marsh prison, which has 578 inmates. The prison lies within the Melbury Abbas and Cann parish council area, which has 614 electors. So if we take this measure to its logical conclusion and prisoners are allowed to vote where they reside, they could potentially overrun the parish council elections. If they were also entitled to stand for election and if they were elected, where might the parish council meet?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a privilege, not a right, to participate in this place, and one that I enjoy thanks to the votes of my electorate.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

Shame!

[Dr Coffey]

I shall see you later. [Interruption.] Sorry, I do not mean “I shall see Madam Deputy Speaker later”.

Members have already discussed how today’s debate could be portrayed as one of illiberalism versus liberalism, and that is a great shame, because it was Government Members who decided to scrap the DNA database for people who are innocent of crime. That was decided not because of an ECHR ruling, but because it was the right thing to do, so it is a shame when people cite particular examples, because it is this House that makes those decisions, and I am proud of that.

Members have also referred to judgments, and my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) talked about how the issue has become an aspect of the debate about what constitutes a free and fair election. In the Frodl case, the comments on that point were that universal suffrage is required, otherwise it

“risks undermining the democratic validity of the legislature thus elected”—

like this one—

“and the laws it promulgates.”

Personally, I just think that they are wrong, but that is an example of the philosophy we are coming up against.

I, like many other Members, am not a lawyer, but I have a strong sense of justice. People commit crimes not because somebody else has told them to do so, but according to their own free will. Other Members have said that that usually deprives other citizens of their freedoms and rights, so there is a conscious decision to commit a crime, and that is why this House is entitled to make a conscious decision to deprive people who commit criminal offences and are sent to prison of their opportunity to vote in elections.

The 2005 Hirst judgment was a majority verdict, but not one that would pass in a court of law here: a vote of 12 to five means that we are in the situation we are in today. There was a lot of discussion in the judgment about whether this House had had the chance to debate whether depriving somebody of their opportunity to vote is just or proportionate in the light of 21st century standards. That issue has received limited attention today, but the key points about freedom of choice and depriving others of such freedoms have been made.

Members have also cited examples. The hon. Members for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann), for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) and others talked about the sentences that people have received for particular crimes—the people to whom we would risk giving the vote if the original proposal that the Government made in December were to pass. I have used before in this House the example of someone in Barrow-in-Furness who was convicted of a crime—brandishing a knife during an armed robbery—that carried a sentence of less than four years. There are other examples involving people who have committed rape. These things matter to people in the street. When I went into any pub in Suffolk Coastal in December, everybody was appalled at the idea of any prisoner serving a criminal sentence having the vote.

I want to bring to the House’s attention something that greatly surprised me when I was doing my research on this topic. The AIRE—Advice on Individual Rights in Europe—Centre represented prisoner Frodl from Austria against the Austrian Government at the European Court of Human Rights, and gave a contributing opinion to the 2005 Hirst judgment. It has also given evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I am not saying that the AIRE Centre should not exist, but I was surprised, as other Members may be, by some of the people who contribute to it. It might not be surprising that the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and other charitable trusts provide funding, but I was a little surprised that Comic Relief does so. I was also surprised when I discovered that the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which uses public money, contributes to it, and even more surprised that the European Commission does so. I was most surprised when I found that the Foreign and Commonwealth gives money to this organisation, whose No. 1 priority is to help to represent prisoners in the ECHR. We should look into that use of public money. I hope that the Attorney-General listens to that and acts on it.