Prisoner Voting

Speaking in the House of Commons debate on prisoner votes Claire Perry, MP for the Devizes Constituency, questioned the recent European Court of Human Rights ruling that the UK ban on prisoner voting was unlawful.

Speaking after the debate, Claire said:

"While I can see very valid reasons to give some prisoners the right to vote as part of the rehabilitation process I think this is a matter for the British Parliament to decide. With these sorts of judgements the European Court is getting too political and too involved in things that are not part of its mandate. I think that the Commons vote yesterday will send a strong message to the court."

For the full text of Claire's speech click here 

Notes:

• Claire is Vice-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Penal Affairs Group and a member of the House of Commons Justice Select Committee.
• In October 2005, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found in the case of Hirst v United Kingdom (No 2) that the UK's blanket ban on all serving convicted prisoners voting is unlawful. The Government is bound, under the ECHR, to abide by Hirst (Strasbourg Judgment, 6 October 2005).
• The Government has been warned it must allow some prison inmates to vote in Westminster and European elections to comply with the legally-binding ruling by the ECHR (BBC News, 9 February 2011).
• Jack Straw MP and David Davis MP secured a debate in the House on 10 February in an attempt to block plans to give prisoners serving under four years the vote. The former Home Secretary and former Shadow Home Secretary triggered a Commons vote on the issue (BBC News, 18 January 2011). Government ministers and the Shadow Cabinet abstained. The rest of the Shadow front bench and backbench MPs of all parties were granted a free vote (Politics.co.uk, 9 February 2011; BBC News, 9 February 2011).
• MPs backed the ban by 234 to 22.

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