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Voting by Prisoners

I shall see you later. [Interruption.] Sorry, I do not mean ““I shall see Madam Deputy Speaker later””. Members have already discussed how today's debate could be portrayed as one of illiberalism versus liberalism, and that is a great shame, because it was Government Members who decided to scrap the DNA database for people who are innocent of crime. That was decided not because of an ECHR ruling, but because it was the right thing to do, so it is a shame when people cite particular examples, because it is this House that makes those decisions, and I am proud of that. Members have also referred to judgments, and my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) talked about how the issue has become an aspect of the debate about what constitutes a free and fair election. In the Frodl case, the comments on that point were that universal suffrage is required, otherwise it"““risks undermining the democratic validity of the legislature thus elected””—" like this one—"““and the laws it promulgates.””" Personally, I just think that they are wrong, but that is an example of the philosophy we are coming up against. I, like many other Members, am not a lawyer, but I have a strong sense of justice. People commit crimes not because somebody else has told them to do so, but according to their own free will. Other Members have said that that usually deprives other citizens of their freedoms and rights, so there is a conscious decision to commit a crime, and that is why this House is entitled to make a conscious decision to deprive people who commit criminal offences and are sent to prison of their opportunity to vote in elections. The 2005 Hirst judgment was a majority verdict, but not one that would pass in a court of law here: a vote of 12 to five means that we are in the situation we are in today. There was a lot of discussion in the judgment about whether this House had had the chance to debate whether depriving somebody of their opportunity to vote is just or proportionate in the light of 21st century standards. That issue has received limited attention today, but the key points about freedom of choice and depriving others of such freedoms have been made. Members have also cited examples. The hon. Members for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann), for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) and others talked about the sentences that people have received for particular crimes—the people to whom we would risk giving the vote if the original proposal that the Government made in December were to pass. I have used before in this House the example of someone in Barrow-in-Furness who was convicted of a crime—brandishing a knife during an armed robbery—that carried a sentence of less than four years. There are other examples involving people who have committed rape. These things matter to people in the street. When I went into any pub in Suffolk Coastal in December, everybody was appalled at the idea of any prisoner serving a criminal sentence having the vote. I want to bring to the House's attention something that greatly surprised me when I was doing my research on this topic. The AIRE—Advice on Individual Rights in Europe—Centre represented prisoner Frodl from Austria against the Austrian Government at the European Court of Human Rights, and gave a contributing opinion to the 2005 Hirst judgment. It has also given evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I am not saying that the AIRE Centre should not exist, but I was surprised, as other Members may be, by some of the people who contribute to it. It might not be surprising that the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and other charitable trusts provide funding, but I was a little surprised that Comic Relief does so. I was also surprised when I discovered that the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which uses public money, contributes to it, and even more surprised that the European Commission does so. I was most surprised when I found that the Foreign and Commonwealth gives money to this organisation, whose No. 1 priority is to help to represent prisoners in the ECHR. We should look into that use of public money. I hope that the Attorney-General listens to that and acts on it.