Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

....Meanwhile in the Commons, an attempt to get the Backbench Business Committee to agree its most contentious debate yet is due at 1pm this afternoon.

A very interesting alliance of former and will be bidding for a debate on the proposal to introduce voting rights for prisoners. The whole "franchise for felons" issue is the product of a series of European Court judgements - and the government wants to have the legislation in place so that it won't be sued by thousands of vote-deprived inmates come the elections this May.

(I wonder if the solicitor for some lag normally resident in Oldham East and Saddleworth isn't already working on a writ based on their client's inability to vote in last week's by-election.)

No-one actually wants to do this, and the last Labour government, mysteriously, didn't get around to addressing the issue before it left office. Interestingly, the necessary legislation will be produced by Nick Clegg's political and constitutional reform people, based in the Cabinet Office, rather than by the Ministry of Justice - having demonstrated some agility in avoiding having to push this one through himself. So another disagreeable task for Mr Clegg's resolutely amiable deputy,

The Coalition whips are doubtless not looking forward to pushing through a measure most Tory MPs loath - and which many have already signalled they will rebel on.

They could well force a substantial watering-down of the current proposal that anyone serving less than four years should be allowed to vote - that's the normal definition of a long term prisoner. Four minutes is the current favoured maximum among the rebels. But there's also talk of excluding those convicted of serious violent or sexual offences - and of lowering the cut-off point to one year.

A backbench debate on the issue could provide an early rallying point for rebels who, remember, would only need about 40 Coalition MPs to switch sides to defeat the government. On this issue, that is not an implausible figure. More alarming still is the alliance of two of the Commons most wily tacticians. They've always been quite matey, and a Straw-Davis axis could emerge as a long term flanking threat to the Coalition's programme.

UPDATE: I'm just back from the Backbench Business Committee, where Messrs Straw and Davis put their case for a backbench debate. The central argument was that this is a constitutional as well as a policy issue - that not only are there serious problems in giving some prisoners a vote, but that the European Court of Human Rights was trespassing into territory which belongs to Parliament, and not to euro-judges.

David Davis, in particular, argued very strongly that backbenchers should seize the opportunity to make a stand on this point. Jack Straw noted that as home secretary he had frequently been forced to swallow ECHR rulings on deportations and similar issues - but this was different because the court was intruding on national policy, when it was normally expected to give nation states some latitude to decide such questions according to their own ethos.

The committee will give its decision later this afternoon, having weighed up alternative bids for debating time. But this is a big moment for them. Will they screw their courage to the sticking place and allow a debate which could result in the government being defeated.

One straw in the wind (no pun intended) was that the chair, Labour's Natascha Engel asked if this might not be a more appropriate issue for an Opposition Day debate. The Straw/Davis thinking on that is that if the Opposition put down a motion on this issue, it would immediately become a polarised party political battle, which would probably stifle the increasing level of backbench dissent developing on the whole question. A backbench debate could result in an alternative, much lower, sentence threshold being accepted by Parliament. One suggestion is that the vote could be given only to prisoners sentenced in magistrates' courts - which have very limited sentencing powers. Straw and Davis were competing for debating time with other proposals on the reform of Parliament and consumer credit regulation.

The committee is meant to choose a motion which has widespread cross party support and which the government and opposition do not plan to debate in their allotted time. The committee's decision will be announced later this afternoon.

UPDATE 2: The committee has now granted the Straw/Davis debate. Their next day in the main chamber has not been scheduled yet - but it will be before the half term break in February.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?