By Nick Robinson
Only prisoners on remand can currently vote The government is preparing to scale back plans to give the right to vote to thousands of prisoners serving sentences of under four years.
Ministers now hope to limit the right to those sentenced to less than a year and are prepared to take the risk of being sued.
David Cameron recently said giving inmates the vote made him feel “ill”.
But he warned that the government faced paying out more than £160m in compensation if it did not do so.
Ministers proposed changing the law on prisoners’ voting rights following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.
John Hirst, a prisoner convicted of manslaughter, successfully argued that his human rights had been violated by not being allowed to take part in elections.
But Mr Cameron is now thought to accept that the Commons is unlikely to vote for a proposal which could involve granting the vote to up to 28,000 prisoners, including 6,000 jailed for violent crime, more than 1,700 sex offenders, more than 4,000 burglars and 4,300 imprisoned for drug offences.
The BBC understands that ministers now hope they will be able to give the vote only to those prisoners sentenced to serve a year or less.
They are aware, however, that this policy will be tested in the courts and that they might lose again.
Even this concession may not persuade many MPs who want to make a stand against the Strasbourg court.
The Commons will have the opportunity to defy the court’s ruling in a couple of weeks’ time when the Commons debates a motion tabled by the Conservative David Davis and Labour’s Jack Straw.
The prime minister met the executive of the 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs on Wednesday and was left in no doubt about the strength of feeling on this issue.
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