Shropshire MPs reject bid to give convicts vote

David Cameron was on a collision course with the European Court of Human Rights today after MPs overwhelmingly rejected controversial plans to give prisoners the vote. Not a single Shropshire MP voted for giving inmates the vote.

Ministers are drawing up a compromise proposal after the House of Commons voted to keep Britain's 140-year-old ban on convicts voting. Loud cheers greeted the result, although fewer than half the chamber voted.

The motion, tabled by senior Conservative David Davis and Labour former justice secretary Jack Straw was last night backed by 234 to 22.

Telford Labour MP David Wright and Wrekin Tory MP Mark Pritchard voted for retaining the ban. Tories Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury & Atcham; Philip Dunne, MP for Ludlow; Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson, MP for North Shropshire; and Glyn Davies, MP for Montgomeryshire; either abstained or missed the vote.

It was a historic defence of Britain's sovereign right to make its own laws in defiance of a ruling by the ECHR - but non-binding.

The Government hopes the vote will strengthen its hand when it begins negotiations with the Strasbourg court and seeks to water down its ruling.

But even under a limited compromise of giving the vote to those serving less than four years would give 28,000 inmates a say.

It follows a long-running legal tussle with the ECHR after it ruled the present UK ban was unlawful in 2004.

During an impassioned six-hour debate, Mr Davis said prisoners had "broken their contract with society", while Mr Straw accused the court of going beyond its remit.

Tory Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, warned there would be "costs and consequences" of ignoring the European judgment.

Although Mr Cameron missed the vote because of a visit to Wiltshire, and all his ministers abstained, he said: "In my view prisoners should not get the vote, and that's that."

But he added: "We're in a situation where the courts are telling us we are going to be fined unless we change this. We are going to have to sort this out ."

He said the prospect of giving prisoners the vote makes him feel "physically sick".

By London Reporter Sunita Patel