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Voting by Prisoners

My hon. Friend shouts in my ear that Hirst fought his case on legal aid. In any case, we should now make a further change to the consultation process on legal aid reform that is currently being conducted by the Ministry of Justice, and make it clear that legal aid will no longer—from today—be available to prisoners or former prisoners suing the Government because they have been denied a vote. We are in the process of reducing legal aid for all kinds of legal action, so why not expressly exclude those claims, which the whole country deprecates? We have the power to do so and we should exercise it. I was never any good at physics at school, but I remember one law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Convicted criminals and their lawyers and the ECHR have conspired to create an action. Let this House today decide to put into place an equal and opposite reaction. I support the motion and hope that it receives an overwhelming majority.