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David Cameron: ''No one should be in any doubt, prisoners are not getting the vote under this government''
Prime Minister David Cameron has said Britain will continue to defy a European Court ruling saying prisoners must be given the right to vote.
"No one should be under any doubt - prisoners are not getting the vote under this government," he told MPs.
But he offered a further Commons debate to "help put the legal position".
It comes after Attorney General Dominic Grieve warned Britain's reputation would be damaged if it did not follow the European Court ruling.
The government is negotiating with the court, but Mr Grieve said there was "flexibility" over action needed.
Most coalition MPs and Labour oppose giving prisoners the vote.
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that a blanket ban on voting for anyone sent to jail is illegal and the government has until the end of November to decide how to react.
The UK has been on a collision course with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) since the Strasbourg court ruled in 2005 that it was a breach of human rights to deny prisoners a vote.
'Standards'The court ruled it was up to individual countries to decide which prisoners should be denied the right to vote from jail, but said a total ban was illegal.
In May of this year, it gave the UK six months to outline how it proposed to change the law on prisoner votes.
But Attorney General Dominic Grieve said there was "flexibility" in the European ruling, and that Parliament had sovereignty over the issue of who was able to vote, as any change would require a Commons vote for amendments to the Representation of the People Act.
Mr Grieve told MPs on the Commons Justice Committee that the UK had a legal duty to implement the judgements of international bodies it had joined. This was also set out in the Ministerial Code, he said.
If Parliament voted to keep a blanket ban on prisoners voting, the government would be liable to pay damages to those affected.
Mr Grieve said: "That would be costly to the United Kingdom, unless it chose not to pay... [which] would be a further breach of the obligations."
He added: "The issue is whether the United Kingdom wishes to be in breach of its international obligations and what that does to the reputation of the United Kingdom."
Mr Grieve said: "The United Kingdom has an enviable reputation in relation to human rights standards and adherence."
He added: "I have no doubt that it would be seen by other countries as a move away from out strict adherence to human rights laws."
Mr Grieve admitted that expulsion from the European Council, which oversees the court, was possible, adding that the UK could itself withdraw: "Governments can leave the Council of Europe if they wish to do so."
'Complicated'Of the reported possibility prisoners could get the vote, a government source told the BBC: "It is completely untrue. It's not happening. It's complete nonsense."
They said the discussions were "legally complicated" but declined to elaborate further.
After the European Court's judgement was announced in May, Prime Minister David Cameron said it would make him "sick" to change that, and that he would resist the ECHR ruling, saying the ban on voting from jail "should be a matter for Parliament... and not a foreign court".
The coalition has to decide whether to comply with the ruling, seek a further delay or do nothing and risk a fine or maybe more.
BBC political correspondent Robin Brant said one Tory backbench MP said any change would be made "over my dead body", and another that the justice secretary should get on with his day job and show the ECHR that "two can play at interminable delay".
For Labour, shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan said: "The Tory-led government's sheer confusion over whether prisoners will or won't get the vote is yet another illustration of the ridiculously shambolic way they are running our country.
"The public will be rightly concerned at reports prisoners could get a vote. If true, thousands of those serving sentences for serious and violent crimes such as wounding, assault and domestic violence would be given a say in who runs the country.
"Instead of the chaos of leaks and spin we've seen this morning, the public deserve the truth about the government's intentions."
But Liberal Democrat backbencher Stephen Williams, a member of the constitutional reform select committee, has said prisoners serving short sentences should be allowed to vote as part of their rehabilitation.
At present, the only prisoners allowed to vote in Britain are those on remand.
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