Downing Street Says » Prisoner Voting

» Monday, September 20, 2010

Prisoner Voting

Asked if the Prime Minister had a view on giving some prisoners the right to vote, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) said that there were a number of court cases, including one currently being considered by the European Court of Human Rights. In considering this issue we would have to take into account what the court said. The previous government held a two-stage consultation on this, which had not concluded by May 2010.

Asked if the consultation was still live, the PMS said that we were considering the issue and would look at what happened in the courts.

Asked if the government’s consideration was being framed by the consultation, the PMS said that he would not say it was specifically framed by it; the consideration would draw on all possible sources of advice.

Asked if the Prime Minister believed that there could be a moral imperative to change the current situation, the PMS said that the position we were in was unfortunate and that a lot of people in the country would find it difficult to understand the argument that prisoners deserved the right to vote. Clearly, we would look at what the court had to say.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.