Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, these amendments provide for the replacement of the current provision 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 House, the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Hirst has ruled that the current statutory prohibition on voting by convicted prisoners is in breach of the convention rights. In response to the judgment, which was delivered in October 2005, the Government undertook a two-stage consultation on this 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. This is being further tested as part of the Government’s second-stage consultation, which closed on 29 September this year. The Government included in their recent consultation on prisoner voting rights one option that allowed judges some discretion in enfranchisement, in some circumstances. However, the Government’s policy is that enfranchisement of convicted prisoners should be linked to the seriousness of the offence that they have committed, through an approach based on the custodial sentence handed down. The removal of the right to vote pursues a number of intertwined aims designed to foster a healthy democratic society. The Government remain of the view that the right to vote goes to the essence of the offender’s relationship with democratic society, and the removal of the right to vote in the case of some convicted prisoners can be a proportionate and proper response following conviction and imprisonment. To this end, the Government proposed a number of policy options in the second-stage consultation paper that linked enfranchisement to sentence length. The Government are currently considering the responses to that consultation and will provide their fuller response in due course. What the noble Lord proposes appears to envisage that the type of offence, or offences, for which a prisoner has been convicted should be the principal determinant of his right to vote. It is not based, as we have been proposing, upon the length of a prisoner’s sentence. It is the Government’s view that the sentence length best reflects the seriousness of the actual crime that prisoners have committed, as reflected in the length of the sentence that they have received from the sentencing court. In passing that sentence, the judge will in most cases already have been through the exercise of taking into account all the circumstances of the offence and those of the offender, and will have determined that not only is a custodial sentence the appropriate disposal, but also that its length will be not inconsiderable. An approach based on sentence length therefore provides clarity on the link between the seriousness of the offence committed and enfranchisement. To follow the route towards prisoner enfranchisement that the noble Lord is proposing would invite a number of challenges, both in terms of policy and practice. We do not consider that the removal of the right to vote should be solely a matter for the sentencing court. The Government’s view has consistently been that it is for Parliament to debate and decide on the extent of the franchise and we continue to hold to that view. It is for this reason that the policy options set out in the recent consultation paper all allow for enfranchisement limited by sentence length. The Government are considering these options and their proposals will be fully debated by Parliament in due course. In practical terms, there are a range of issues to be worked through, should an approach to enfranchisement based on judicial discretion be pursued. Consideration would need to be given to the operational impact on the courts, were this additional burden to be placed on them, and whether any transitional provision would be needed for those prisoners already serving sentences at the time that any new legislation came into force. But most importantly, there is a question of process to be considered. Given that the Government have not yet provided their full response to the second stage consultation, it would be premature to introduce legislation before we had the opportunity to give proper consideration to all the issues that an approach to enfranchisement based on sentencing, with or without a judicial discretion, will entail. A number of responses have been received to the second stage consultation and it is only right that we take time to consider those and reflect on our position before taking further steps towards enfranchising prisoners. I thank the noble Lord for his Ciceronian—if that is the right term—speech and I will not try to match it or go into the chronology in any greater detail. I will touch briefly, however, on his quoting from the Evening Standard. For many years, the Evening Standard had a propensity to quote me quite regularly in my previous role, and the difference between what I had said and what was subsequently printed was often extremely wide. I urge the noble Lord not to take quotes in the Evening Standard too seriously. I can assure him that the Lord Chancellor does not hold the ECHR or the Human Rights Act in contempt and is fully supportive of the Act, the ECHR and all its provisions. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will agree this approach and withdraw his amendment.