Prisoners to vote for MSPs

PRISONERS will get their first chance to vote in next year's elections to the Scottish Parliament after a ruling overturned a 140-year-old ban.

The Government is to confirm that it is ready to change the law to remove the voting ban on more than 70,000 inmates of British jails.

The move comes after government lawyers advised that failure to comply with a 2004 European ruling could cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds in litigation costs and compensation.

David Cameron was said to be "exasperated and furious" at having to accept that there was no way of keeping the UK's 140-year-old blanket ban on sentenced prisoners voting.