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Voting by Prisoners

Of course my hon. Friend is right. One of the points about laws in a democracy is that they exist, at the very least, with the acquiescence—the consent, we hope—of everybody in that democracy. Between 75% and 90% of the population cannot understand what we are doing in even considering this proposal. Let me go back to the compromises that have been talked about. It is not my aim to put the Government into a difficult position from which they cannot escape; the issue is about whether those compromises would work. The proposals put up so far—four years, one year, six months—would not work. They would not escape the threat that we have had held over us of compensation or some other form of penalty against our taxpayers. In fact, one member of the Council of Europe, Austria, did give the vote to prisoners serving less than one year, and it then appeared in the Court and was found against. Just how ridiculous this is became clear earlier this week, when the European Commissioner for Human Rights appeared on Radio 4. Because he had said that a blanket rule would not work, he was asked what the guideline was, and he said, ““A breach of electoral law.”” That would put us in the ridiculous position whereby we denied the vote to somebody who broke electoral law, in however minor a way, yet gave it to the rapist and the murderer. It is so ridiculous that I cannot believe he really meant it.