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Voting by Prisoners

I need to make progress, but I will give way to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) a bit later. Rather, the problem has arisen because of the judicial activism of the Court in Strasbourg, which is widening its role not only beyond anything anticipated in the founding treaties but beyond anything anticipated by the subsequent active consent of all the state parties, including the UK. In his major lecture two years ago, to which reference has already been made, Lord Hoffman spelled out in eloquent detail the difficulties that the situation was causing, including for the UK judiciary. He said that the Strasbourg Court"““lacked constitutional legitimacy””" in intervening in matters"““on which member states…have not surrendered their sovereign powers””." He added well-founded criticism of the highly variable quality of its judges and administration. Where the Court has given judgment against the UK in respect of fundamental human rights, successive Home Secretaries and UK Governments have readily complied, whether on specific cases, such as terrorist deportations, or on matters such as the need for proper regulation of phone-tapping and the intelligence agencies—and so has this House, whether or not it agreed with what the Court was saying, because we have voluntarily and readily accepted its jurisdiction.