Coroners and Justice Bill

In that case, I withdraw what I was saying immediately. I was under the impression that the noble Lord was in favour of automatic enfranchisement. I presume that he is not. As the noble Lord has reminded us, his amendment seeks seek to repeal Section 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, and replace the current blanket ban on voting rights for convicted prisoners with a system by which a prisoner’s right to vote is determined by the court that sentenced them. As the noble Lord has reminded the Committee, the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Hirst has ruled that the current statutory prohibition on voting by convicted prisoners was in breach of the convention rights. In response to the judgment, which was delivered in October 2005—which by my estimation is not seven years ago—the Government are undertaking a two-stage consultation on this difficult and sensitive issue. The responses to the first-stage consultation paper indicated that there was no great support for the option of allowing the sentencing court to decide on whether a prisoner retained his or her right to vote. The Government are not entirely opposed to the principle of allowing the sentencing court to effectively judge each case on its own merits. Indeed, the fourth of the options in the second and current consultation is to allow judges some discretion in enfranchisement. However, this approach needs to be considered very carefully. As to the substantive issue, let me say a few words about the Government’s approach as set out in the current consultation. Our approach to the possible enfranchisement of prisoners is based on the length of custodial sentence to which a prisoner has been sentenced. The Government consider that, in general, the more serious the offence that has been committed, the less right an individual should have to retain the right to vote when sentenced to imprisonment. Tying entitlement to vote to sentence length would have the benefit of establishing a clear relationship between the seriousness of the offence, or offences, and suspension of the right to vote. Therefore, in its second-stage consultation paper, the Government have proposed four policy options to determine a prisoner’s entitlement to vote, all of which are based on the length of his custodial sentence as handed down, with one partial exception. Under our first three options, prisoners would automatically retain the right to vote when they have been sentenced to a period of imprisonment of less than one year, less than two years and less than four years respectively. Under option 4, prisoners who have been sentenced to a period of less than two years’ imprisonment would automatically retain the right to vote. In addition, prisoners who have received sentences of more than two but less than four years could apply to be entitled to vote, but only where a judge grants permission in their specific case. This last option allows some element of judicial discretion in determining a prisoner’s right to vote and, in this context, the need for sentencing guidelines to ensure consistency and fairness would remain paramount. This element would apply only to prisoners sentenced to between two and four years’ imprisonment. When the second consultation has concluded, in September this year, the Government will consider the next steps. It would be premature to introduce legislation before this second consultation has been completed, and before we have had the opportunity to give proper consideration to all the complex issues that an approach to enfranchisement based on sentence length throws up. There will be a need for a UK-wide approach to this issue, and the judiciary would need to be fully consulted, particularly where proposals are being made for judicial discretion in enfranchisement. I noted that the noble Lord said that this was a probing amendment. I thank him for raising it today and ask him to withdraw his amendment.