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Offender Management Bill

I support two of these three amendments, and I do so because I remember that when the European Convention on Human Rights was being introduced to this country, I asked a lawyer to run through prison rules to see whether they complied with the convention and to see whether there was any difference. We were warned at that time that there was likely to be a considerable amount of legislation raised by prisoners alleging that their human rights had been breached. In fact, it turned out that there is no difference at all; everything in prison rules is already incorporated in the human rights. So, if those rights have been breached then prison rules have been breached, and those rules are what the prison service is there to maintain. Therefore, any change that affects prison rules also has a human rights dimension if prison rules are not included.