'Some Prisoners Should Be Allowed To Vote'

Prisoners serving short sentences or approaching the end of their time behind bars should be given the vote, according to a group of MPs and peers.

The committee said it would be "wholly disproportionate" for the UK to defy a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and said the Government had failed to set out a "plausible" case for maintaining the existing blanket ban.

It called on the Government to table a Bill granting the vote in local, general and European elections to those serving less than 12 months or within six months of release.

Those convicted of particularly serious crimes would remain banned.

However, the panel of MPs and peers was split over the issue, with chairman Nick Gibb and two other MPs arguing that the Government should give Parliament the choice between offering prisoners this restricted franchise or keeping the ban.

The majority recommendation flies in the face of a House of Commons vote in 2011, when MPs voted by an overwhelming 234 to 22 to preserve the ban, in spite of the ECHR ruling that it breaches the European Convention on Human Rights.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling last year published a draft bill offering MPs three options - giving the vote to prisoners serving less than four years or less than six months or keeping the ban.

But Prime Minister David Cameron told the Commons extending the vote to prisoners would make him "physically ill".

In its report, the joint committee of both Houses set up to consider the Draft Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill found Britain was under a "binding international law obligation" to comply with the ECHR ruling and defiance would be "completely unprecedented" and have "grave implications".

"The rule of law has been and should remain a fundamental tenet of UK policy," the committee said.

"It is not possible to reconcile the principle of the rule of law with remaining within the Convention while declining to implement the judgment of the Court."

The UK is one of only five of the 47 Council of Europe members to ban all convicted prisoners from voting, alongside Armenia, Bulgaria, Estonia and Russia.

Granting the vote to those serving less than 12 months was unlikely to affect more than around 7,000 people in any election, said the committee.

It recommended giving inmates postal votes for their home constituencies, and predicted that prisoners' votes were "unlikely to have a bearing on the outcome of elections".

The report's key recommendation was approved by MPs Crispin Blunt (C) and Sir Alan Meale (Lab) and peers Lord Dholakia (Lib Dem), Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen (Lab), Lord Norton of Louth (C) and Lord Peston (Lab).

Alongside Conservative former minister Mr Gibb, Tory MP Steve Brine and Labour's Derek Twigg dissented.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "This is an issue on which Parliament has expressed strong views.

"The Government will consider the report carefully and will respond early next year, setting out how Parliament will be given its say."

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