Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to ask MPs whether they want to vote on a referendum over changing the way people vote.

He will tell MPs that the referendum would be held after the general election to decide whether to change the system from first-past-the-post to the Alternative Vote, under which voters rank candidates in order of preference.

He will say the the change could be part of a "new politics" updating Britain's constitutional settlement as the country moves towards the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta in 2015.

Mr Brown has asked Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell to codify the unwritten conventions which govern the way central Government operates, while a separate group will look at the case for a written constitution.

Meanwhile, the creator of the worldwide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has already been asked to look at means of making more Government data available to citizens through the internet.

Copyright © Press Association 2010

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