Mark Isherwood AM reacted to the announcement that the controversial “votes for prisoners” amendment to the Local Government and Elections Bill being heard today (April 8) has been dropped saying:
“Welsh Conservatives have long campaigned against allowing votes for prisoners, and so I am delighted that the Welsh Government has at been forced to see sense and dropped what is an unpopular section of the Bill.
“To have attempted to push through this legislation through – when all business must be focused solely on battling Covid-19 (Coronavirus), a national crisis – is not the best of the Welsh Parliament’s time.
“Votes for prisoners serving sentences of four years or less would have enfranchised people convicted of some serious crimes, including sexual assault, breach of a sex offender order, racially-aggravated crimes, and necrophilia.
“While we strongly support action to rehabilitate prisoners, the evidence we received when we looked at votes for prisoners in committee was that giving prisoners would not achieve it.
“However, we must pay careful attention to what has been said. The Minister for Local Government stated she ‘… would not commit further resources to this at the moment’, and so we should be mindful that the Welsh Labour administration does not try to push this through later, when the country has come through this emergency.
“After all, the Minister has only committed to not introduce this at the next stage of this bill, but this does not stop her reintroducing it at the final stages, at least for now.”
