Fears over claims haunt MPs as votes for prisoners thrown out

MPs sided by 234 to 22 in favour of the cross-party motion, tabled by senior Tory Yorkshire MP David Davis and Labour former Home Secretary Jack Straw, to oppose the Strasbourg court’s ruling that Britain’s ban on voting in prisons was unlawful.

Although Mr Cameron has admitted the thought of allowing prisoners take part in elections made him “physically sick”, the Government has proposed to give the vote to more than 28,000 inmates serving less than four years, including violent criminals, sex offenders and burglars.

Ministers fear that defying the ECHR’s ruling would attract compensation claims from inmates running into millions of pounds but Attorney General Dominic Grieve promised to reflect last night’s emphatic result in what he said would be “a drawn-out dialogue” with the court.

Haltemprice and Howden MP Mr Davis, a former Tory shadow home secretary, said convicted prisoners had “broken their contract with society” and the size of the majority reflected the view of the country.

“The ball is now in the Government’s court to go back to the ECHR and tell them that they cannot supplant the role of Parliament,” he said.

Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan said Labour had always opposed giving prisoners the vote.

“The Government must, as a matter of urgency, bring forward their draft legislation so Parliament and the public are clear about where they stand on this important issue,” he said.

The Government’s proposals were drawn up after John Hirst, who was jailed for 15 years in 1980 for killing his landlady with the blunt side of an axe, successfully argued in the ECHR that he should be allowed to vote.

It is feared that the ruling could pave the way for teams of no-win, no-fee lawyers to sign up inmates to make compensation claims.

Several Yorkshire MPs took part in a six-hour debate on the issue yesterday, including former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson and former Europe minister Denis MacShane.

Mr MacShane defended the Strasbourg court, claiming that people in Africa, Asia and South America “would die to have an ECHR to tell their government what to do,”

Traditional “social and political liberalism” had now been replaced by a “raw economic liberalism”, he told MPs.

“Populist illiberalism is the new politics of much of the continent. It’s a shame to see it arrive in the Commons – I hope our country does not tear up the treaty or quit the Council of Europe.”

But Mr MacShane’s views were not shared by the majority of backbenchers, including the Tory MP for Kettering, Philip Holloborne, who described the ECHR as a “kangaroo court” and called on the Government to show some “guts and backbone” and take it on.

Mr Grieve admitted he too had been “frustrated” and even “angry” with the situation.

But he told MPs the ECHR judgment constituted an “international obligation” because the UK subscribed to the European Convention on Human Rights and to membership of the Council of Europe.

The Tory MP for Dewsbury, Simon Reevell, said he did not believe prisoners should have the vote but warned against “picking and choosing” ECHR judgments.

“Is it really suggested that we can welcome rulings that we like and simply ignore those that we don’t?” he said.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said MPs had voted to hang on to a “19th-century punishment”.

“The outdated ban on prisoners voting has no place in a modern prison system, which is about rehabilitation and respect for the rule of law,” she said.