Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 24 February 2021
In my opinion, the Conservative motion that we are debating is both surprising and baffling. I associate myself with the remarks made earlier by Rhoda Grant, Liam McArthur and John Finnie.
The motion is surprising because, as we have heard, the issue of prisoner voting was decided by a supermajority in the Parliament last year. To revoke that now would be incompatible with our human rights obligations—which the Conservatives undoubtedly know, despite Liam Kerr’s spin on the Hirst case. The motion is baffling because it throws into question the Conservatives’ whole attitude and approach towards building an effective, rehabilitative justice system that is fit for the 21st century, which is the aim for which most countries in the world now strive.
Prisoner voting has focused on human rights as an important part of the rehabilitation process. Similar action on prisoner voting has been taken in other parts of the UK, and widely across the world, as a progressive step towards reshaping the justice system into a humane and civilised institution. The European Court of Human Rights has stated:
“The right to vote is not a privilege. In the 21st century the presumption in a democratic state must be in favour of inclusion.”
Do the Tories seriously want our Government to endorse such a regressive step and for our country to be isolated by their short-sighted view of rehabilitation in our justice system? That is not soft justice, as they are fond of saying; it is rough justice.
The Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representation) Act 2020 sent an important message about our willingness to welcome short-term prisoners back into society. It was the first bill in the Scottish Parliament to require the support of a supermajority of two-thirds of members. The Parliament voted in favour of the bill by 92 members to 27, with only the Tories voting against it.
Changing the law on prisoner voting now would also disrupt preparations for the forthcoming election. Changing the franchise would mean committing to using the short time remaining in this parliamentary session to rush though a new bill to reverse the 2020 act. I imagine that the Conservatives know that, but they still lodged the motion. Of course, populism and soundbites are par for the course for that party—a sure sign of desperation, as the minister said.
Surely promoting responsible citizenship, within the context of the wider objectives of reintegration in order to reduce reoffending, should be our goal if prison is to mean anything. We now know much more about the reasons why people take the wrong path into crime and end up being incarcerated. That path often starts with childhood trauma, a lack of early intervention, deprivation, abuse, neglect and many other barriers that are not easily overcome. Exclusion from the electoral process would add to their sense of marginalisation in a way that would hamper efforts to encourage rehabilitation and reduce the risk of reoffending. Is that really what the Conservatives want?
It is hard to understand just why Douglas Ross and the Scottish Tories find Scotland meeting its human rights obligations “appalling”. In addition to the UK, the only Council of Europe countries that have a blanket ban on prisoner voting are Armenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary and Russia. In contrast, the Council of Europe states that have no—or virtually no—such restrictions are Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The Welsh Government has accepted that prisoners serving custodial sentences of less than four years should be granted the right to vote in elections to the devolved Welsh Parliament.
The Conservatives might like to pretend that they are the party of law and order, but the evidence shows that it is the SNP’s decisions in Government that have had a positive impact. The Scottish Government’s firm focus on early intervention, crime prevention and the rehabilitation of offenders has meant that we now have less crime and fewer victims than a decade ago—and those are the key indicators of what works.
Alongside reforms strengthening the rights of victims and vulnerable witnesses, the draft budget delivers increased resource funding of more than £18 million for services to support victims of crime and deliver measures to improve their experience of the justice system.
The Tories would do better to use their time to work with the Government to progress a rehabilitative prisons system, rather than lodge pointless motions such as the one that we are debating.
15:29