Fact check: Labour’s manifesto has not promised to give prisoners the vote

A Labour report which recommended prisoners should vote was released before Sir Keir Starmer became Labour leader.

Tuesday 02 July 2024 10:41 EDT

Prisoners do not have the right to vote in UK general elections (Victoria Jones/PA) (PA Wire)

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Conservative Home Secretary James Cleverly has said Labour will “probably” give votes to criminals.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Cleverly said: “They’re probably going to get votes for criminals.”

Evaluation

The Labour manifesto does not promise to give votes to prisoners, and Wes Streeting accused Mr Cleverly of lying about the party’s plans.

Labour did release a report in 2020 which recommended votes for prisoners, but that was written before Sir Keir Starmer became party leader.

Sir Keir did co-author a book in 1996 which argued, among other things, that it was difficult to justify removing a prisoner’s right to vote.

The last Labour government said it was against votes for prisoners.

The facts

A 2020 Labour Party report argued that UK citizens above the age of 16 should have a right to vote “without qualification”.

“This would include a right to vote for prisoners who are UK citizens,” it said.

This report was released in February 2020, which is two months before Sir Keir Starmer became leader of the party.

The Conservative Party pointed the PA news agency towards a 1996 book of which Sir Keir was one of three co-authors.

On taking away prisoners’ votes, it said it is “difficult to conceive of a reasonable justification for this additional, and somewhat arbitrary, punishment which goes against the drift of evolving international standards”.

It contrasted the near-total ban on prisoners voting with the fact that prisoners can be elected to be an MP if their sentence is shorter than one year.

The book was written nearly three decades ago, and it is unclear if Sir Keir still holds this view. He does not appear to have mentioned the topic once since entering parliament in 2015.

A 2021 news article said friends of Sir Keir said the 1996 book was legal analysis, and not a political viewpoint, and that he does not support votes for prisoners.

A Labour spokesman told PA: “It’s a lie. Our position on extending the voter franchise is outlined in our manifesto – and that is solely extending votes to 16-year-olds, which has been well covered.

“The Tories’ claims on this are completely false.”

The UK’s blanket ban

In 2005 the European Court of Human Rights ruled the UK’s blanket ban on prisoner voting breached the European Convention on Human Rights.

According to a House of Commons report the last Labour government “considered the ban on prisoners voting was appropriate”, but consulted on changes in order to comply with international law.

A 2013 report from a committee which included five Conservative, four Labour and two Liberal Democrat MPs and peers, as well as one crossbench peer, recommended that prisoners serving a sentence of 12 months or less “should be entitled to vote in all UK parliamentary, local and European elections”.

In 2017 the Conservative government made proposals which satisfied the 2005 ruling and the case was closed a year later.

These changes “allowed prisoners released on temporary licence to vote” as well as ensuring that prisoners were notified that on conviction they would lose their vote.

The Labour Government in Wales has since 2017 had the power to give the vote to prisoners in local and Assembly elections.

One Welsh Labour minister said in 2019 that the Welsh Government supports the principle of the right to vote for prisoners.

However, while a 2019 Welsh Assembly Act had been intended to introduce changes to prisoner voting, it did not. A 2022 consultation in Wales said prisoner voting “remains a priority”.