Tom Brake
Main Page: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)Department Debates - View all Tom Brake's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing this debate. It has generated more interest in Westminster Hall than other debates that I have attended. I congratulate also the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). She said that she felt rather vulnerable taking part in the debate, but at least she positioned herself strategically with no one sitting behind her.
Some Members will acknowledge that an announcement was unavoidable because the Minister had been put in a position in which he had no alternative. Others, however, will argue that he could have disregarded the ruling. I should be interested to know whether a majority of Members present think that we should abide by the law and the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, which clearly stated that the Government had to address the question.
The Government have known about the problem for a long time. Since 2004, we knew that the Government—any Government—would have to deal with it sooner or later. The previous Government found some imaginative ways to postpone taking a decision or responding to something that they knew was coming down the track, given the consultations that they launched and their unwillingness to take action.
During his speech, the hon. Member for Kettering was asked to confirm when the blanket ban came into place. As he said, it came about under the Forfeiture Act 1870. He deployed the argument that the Government and Members of Parliament clearly debated the matter in 1870. I do not know whether he thinks that once in every 140 years is appropriate, or whether those 140 years have brought about a change in the way in which Parliament and society should operate.
Philip Davies
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that in those 140 years, there has been ample opportunity for Governments to change the status quo? The fact that change has not been debated is a fair indication that the will of the House—and of the public—in those intervening years was not to change it. It has been within Parliament’s gift to change over for the past 140 years if it had so wished, but it did not so wish.
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.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
On a point of principle, does the hon. Gentleman think that the judges of the European Court should ultimately determine what happens—or should it be the Members of this House, who are elected by their constituents?
Tom Brake
The fact is that we abide by the rules of the European Court of Human Rights, and it has ruled that the Government should take action. I believe, as does the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston, that it is appropriate for the Government to do so. The hon. Gentleman may disagree, as may others, but they take the debate slightly away from the right of prisoners to vote to the subject of the European Union, on which there will be a longer debate—[Interruption.] I mean aspects of the European Court and human rights that will be the subject of another debate in the main Chamber.
It is right that the Minister should clarify why four years was chosen. In the briefings that I have seen, the justification is that four years is the cut-off point between a short-term prison sentence and a long-term one. I have seen no other argument for why that threshold should have been chosen. The Minister should respond to that point.
The Minister should also respond to the hon. Member for Kettering and others, who said that concern had been expressed that compensation might have to be paid. If a total of 85,000 prisoners claimed £750 compensation, it could amount to tens of millions of pounds. The Minister will have heard that some accuse the Government of making up the figures. I hope that he will tell us where the information about these potential compensation claims came from and say whether he stands by the contention that the Government might be liable for a large number of claims if no action is taken.
I hope that the Minister will also explain why the voting rights that he proposes are to apply to Westminster and European elections only, and not to other polls. If the Government were to allow prisoners to vote in local elections exclusively, it could be argued that prisoners would be less able to influence the Government’s prison agenda if they could vote only in local council elections. I would be interested to hear why those two elections were chosen.
Tom Brake
In a moment. The Minister has rightly made it clear that if the proposals go through, prisoners will be allowed to vote only in the constituencies that they came from or with which they have a connection and not in the constituency in which the prison is placed. The risk of large numbers of prisoners swinging an election result will therefore be greatly reduced.
Tom Brake
The hon. Gentleman has helpfully answered my question, so the Minister does not need to respond to it. I presume that that is why the Government have not gone down the route of allowing prisoners to vote in local elections. However, they could exercise their local votes as electors on the register in the constituencies from which they originally came; it would not necessarily have to be in the locality of the prison.
What this argument is clearly about, and the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston expressed it very well, is whether voting is an intrinsic right—a basic human right—or whether it is a right that should be forfeited when people lose their liberty. Of course prisoners lose their liberty; no one disputes that that is the appropriate response to a crime. However, to what extent do they lose other liberties that are associated with being a citizen? There are certain responsibilities that they retain. For example, prisoners pay capital gains tax on any capital gains transactions that they might be involved in and they pay tax on their savings. They are, therefore, making contributions that other citizens make, so to what extent do we inflict civic death on them and include withdrawing their right to vote as well as other aspects of their liberty?
Mr Offord
The picture that the hon. Gentleman paints is of prisoners being like the fictional characters of Andy Dufresne or Norman Fletcher—I am talking about paying capital gains tax and other tax. However, if we look at someone like John Hirst, who was originally convicted and sentenced to 15 years, we will find that he served another 10 years for his behaviour in prison. That shows that not only was he not a model prisoner when he was in prison, but he was not a contributor to society when he was out of it. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that some prisoners deserve to lose the kind of rights that we have been talking about?
Tom Brake
Of course. The hon. Gentleman has quite rightly illustrated that there are certain prisoners for whom there should be no such thing as a right to vote. They have forfeited their right, and that is appropriate. However, this debate is not black and white, but shades of grey. For some prisoners at one end of the spectrum, a one-year cut-off might be more appropriate. Equally, there are other prisoners, at the other end of the spectrum, who have forfeited any right to vote in future elections.
It is also worth considering the arguments that could be deployed against allowing some prisoners the right to vote. For example, is there any evidence that disfranchisement helps to prevent crime? I am not aware that there is any evidence that suggests that withdrawing the right to vote from prisoners helps to prevent crime. Are there any concerns about the difficulties of implementation? Certainly, the Prison Governors Association and the National Offender Management Service have no concerns about the logistical difficulties of providing votes to certain categories of prisoners. As I stated earlier, is such a change a great departure? In other words, are we moving to a system in which prisoners are, for the first time, given the right to vote? The answer is no, because remand prisoners and people in prison for contempt of court and for defaulting on fines are already eligible to vote.
To conclude, it is very clear that this is an issue in which the coalition Government are between a rock and a hard place. The European Court ruling is clear. The Government, who are potentially at risk from compensation claims, have to take action within the framework of the law. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on some of these issues of detail and on how the Government arrived at the particular threshold that they have chosen.