At Justice Questions on 23rd November 2010, David Ruffley MP questioned the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke QC MP, on the continuing controversy over giving prisoners the vote.

Ruffley proposed a radical solution for dealing with the problem:

"The Hirst judgment says that article 3 of protocol 1 of the European convention on human rights obliges this House to give some prisoners the vote; as we have heard, it also gives rise to financial compensation to some prisoners who have been denied that right. Although I sympathise with my right hon. and learned Friend, does he accept that there is an intellectual case for, in time, bringing powers back to Westminster in this area by repealing the Human Rights Act 1998 and withdrawing from the European convention of human rights?"

Justice Secretary Ken Clarke was not sympathetic to this course of action:

"There has been another British case today, which has clarified the situation slightly and has underlined the fact that the Government have discretion on how to comply with their obligations. In due course, obviously, we shall establish a commission on how best to give effect to our human rights obligations in this country, but that will not happen until at least next year. The coalition Government do not intend to withdraw from the European convention on human rights, which was imposed by the victorious British on the rest of Europe after the war in order to establish British values across the countries that were recovering from fascism and was drafted largely by Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, who put what he thought were the best principles of British justice into it."

You can read the full article at http://conservativehome.blogs.com/parliament/2010/11/david-ruffley-sugge...

and the full exchange between David and Kenneth Clarke can be read here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm101123/debtext/101123-0001.htm