To listen to Martin discussing his amendment on the Today Programme, Radio 4 click here

http://tinyurl.com/martintodayprogramme

The Government announced today that it is to table an amendment to the Constitutional Reform and Government Bill on the same lines as the New Clause already tabled by Martin Linton and supported by 30 Labour MPs. The new clause would put the party’s commitment to a referendum on the Alternative Vote into legislation.

The only substantial difference between the Government’s new clause and the existing New Clause 32 will be that the referendum has to be held by Autumn 2011 instead of Autumn 2010.

Battersea MP Martin Linton, who tabled the amendment, said: "I very much welcome this and hope that we can have a good debate and reach a consensus around this amendment.

"The 30 MPs who signed my New Clause include some who started off as supporters of First-Past-The-Post, some who are electoral reformers but recognise that this is the only reform that can command a consensus and some who have always been supporters of AV.

"It’s a victory for all sides by bringing together a broad coalition of backbenchers to meet in the middle and rally round the best system we can all agree on.

"Even at this late stage we believe it is still possible to get this on the statute book before the next election. It has wide support in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

"It’s intended to give voters a choice at the next election. As Labour candidates, we want to be able to say to voters who want change: ‘we will vote for a referendum and we will vote for change.’ We also want to take the challenge to David Cameron: if he claims to be the party of change, why isn’t he supporting this crucial reform?"

To join the debate about whether Parliament should get the X Factor and change its voting sytem http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8493452.stm

Frequently asked questions:

"Isn’t this just a Trojan horse for Proportional Representation (PR)?" It’s not a step towards PR. It doesn’t make it any more likely that this country will adopt a PR system at any point in the future. Arguably, it is less likely because people will think it’s an improvement and thus will eliminate the need for further improvements. Australia and France both have preferential voting systems and there’s no big campaign in either country to go for PR. What’s more likely to increase pressure for a fundamental change in the system would be the refusal of MPs to contemplate any change at all – as happened in New Zealand.

"Isn’t it true that Alternative Vote can be even less proportional than First-Past-The-Post?" Some electoral reformers are refusing to back it for this very reason. AV doesn’t claim to be proportional to first preferences. It’s true that in some circumstances it can be even less proportional (e.g. increasing Labour’s majority even further in 1997), but on average and in the long-term it is more proportional even to first preferences. More importantly, it is always much more proportional to first and second preferences. It corresponds more closely to what people actually want.

"Isn’t it being backed by PR-supporters?" We are certainly not all PR-supporters. We are putting this amendment forward in the hope that it is something that we can all support, whether we started off as first-past-the-posters, electoral reformers, or were always in favour of AV. It may not be a perfect system, but it’s the best system we can all agree on. It’s clear there will never be a majority for PR, but we hope we could all at least agree on AV – which is not proportional but is a fairer system. That why we’ve been using it to elect the Mayor and in our party elections.

"Isn’t First-Past-The-Post simpler?" People have never had any problems with preferential voting systems. They are used for mayoral elections (with two choices). All parties use them to choose their leaders. The Australians have long used AV. The French have a preferential system in two rounds. In The X-factor people use a similar system, eliminating the candidates one by one. If The X-Factor used First-Past-The-Post, the Jedward twins would have won because they came top out of 10 candidates in an early round – but they got very few second preferences and went out of the competition.