Achieving a consensus on constitutional and political renewal is going to be much harder to achieve than Gordon Brown’s “big tent” rhetoric implies. You can take parties to a conference table, but you can’t make them agree. This is not partisan tribalism, or perversity. Legitimate differences exist. Mr Brown cannot be faulted for the diversity of his attempts to consult: from citizens’ juries (with the first today) to the underdiscussed revival of Speaker’s Conferences. But how far is Mr Brown really willing to listen and compromise? Or is he more concerned merely to show that he is reaching out?

Tory critics point to his refusal to have a televised leaders’ debate at the next election (the view of all Prime Ministers but one) and his opposition to an EU referendum (a more debatable point). Will there be guided democracy or an open-ended discussion?

The most unexpected suggestion is for a Speaker’s Conference “to consider, against the backdrop of a decline in turnout, a number of important issues, such as electoral registration, weekend voting, and the representation of women and ethnic minorities in the Commons”, plus, in parallel with the Youth Citizenship Commission, lowering the voting age to 16.

A Speaker’s Conference is an attempt to reach a cross-party agreement by bringing together the leaders’ representatives at Westminster for confidential talks under the Speaker as chairman. In one of its invaluable background notes, the Commons Library says use of these conferences (on five occasions in the last century) was a reflection of “the constitutional convention that changes to the electoral system should be agreed as far as possible on an all-party basis”. This has often been breached in the practice, however.

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The most important conference, in 1916-17, provided the basis for the later extension of the vote to all men, and to women over 30, and might have led to the introduction of the alternative vote but for the late opposition of the Lords. Subsequent conferences have led to a redistribution of seats (now formalised), a lowering of the voting age, changed registration of electors, and an increase in the number of Northern Ireland MPs.

The last conference was in 1978: since then, we have had the creation of the Electoral Commission in 2000 to advise on such matters. But it cannot decide on such essentially political issues. And opinion is divided. The Populus parliamentary panel of MPs in July showed that, while Liberal Democrats were heavily in favour of reducing the voting age from 18 to 16, Labour MPs were narrowly (53 per cent) against, but Tory members were heavily (83 per cent) opposed. Well over four fifths of Labour and Lib Dem MPs were in favour of weekend rather than Thursday voting, but only a narrow majority of Tories.

Moreover, many of the questions about boosting registration have recently been divisive. Labour has opposed individual, as opposed to household, registration, except for postal votes, because of fears about reducing the number on the register.

Increasing the number of women and ethnic minority MPs raises questions about quotas and restricted selections, where, again, there is no unanimity. Speaker Martin will need all his negotiating skills to broker a comprehensive cross-party deal.

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