The Speaker's conference unanimously proposed the introduction of proportional representation in the boroughs which were large enough to have three or more MPs; these were to be arranged in constituencies returning between three and five members, in which each elector would have a single transferable vote.
30 More contentiously, the conference passed by a majority the recommendation that, in single‐member seats when more than two candidates were nominated, the alternative vote system should be used.
31 However, when the conference report was eventually debated in the house of commons on 28 March 1916, the prime minister, David Lloyd George, undermined these proposals by indicating his lack of enthusiasm for proportional representation; it was not ‘in quite the same category’ as the other recommendations, and indeed ‘not an essential part of the scheme’.
32 This opened the door to the report's recommendations being treated as a list which could be adopted or amended selectively, rather than an indivisible whole, and it overtly encouraged the discarding of proportional representation – about which the views of MPs were certainly divided. The majority of Conservative MPs were opposed to both forms of proportional representation, but there was support among Conservative peers for the single transferable vote as the means of retaining some representation of the middle class in the towns, where they would be a beleaguered minority after the advent of adult male suffrage. On the other hand, many Liberal and Labour MPs favoured the alternative vote; this had been a proposal in the pre‐war era of their ‘progressive alliance’, and they expected to gain from it in Conservative‐held areas, especially in the counties. Views on the alternative vote more closely paralleled party lines than did those on the single transferable vote, but there were many unpredictable cross‐currents in the house of commons. Some of these were based on past convictions for or against proportional representation, but others were matters of personal expediency in reaction to how their own constituency would be affected. The application of the scheme to London was particularly disliked by most of its MPs, both Conservative and Liberal, and they played an important role in the foundation of the Anti‐Proportional Representation Committee in 1917.
33
The result was a protracted series of motions and amendments, and during the second half of 1917 various proposals were defeated or approved, often by narrow and temporary majorities. Early in the committee stage of the bill, the single transferable vote scheme was defeated on 12 June 1917 by 149 to 141, with 85 Conservative MPs voting against it, and it was, again, rejected on 4 July by 201 to 169.
34 On 9 August, when the alternative vote was approved by a single vote, the party division on this issue was clear: the MPs who opposed it consisted of 113 Conservatives and 13 Liberals, while those in favour comprised two Conservatives, 98 Liberals, 17 Labour, and ten Irish Nationalists.
35 At the report stage, the single transferable vote scheme was rejected again by the larger margin of 202 to 126 on 22 November, while later on the same day the alternative vote was reaffirmed by 150 to 121. Finally, on 5 December, two days before the bill passed its third reading in the Commons, the single transferable vote was inserted for application only to Ireland by 181 to 117. The Conservative Party remained strongly opposed to the alternative vote, and when the bill reached the Conservative‐dominated house of lords, on 22 January 1918, it was removed and replaced by the single transferable vote. When the bill went back to the Commons, it rejected the Lords’ amendments by 223 to 123 on 30 January, and next day, by the much narrower margin of 178 to 170, reinstated the alternative vote. There was then a final flurry, with the house of lords in turn reversing this on 4 February, and on the following day the lower House removing the single transferable vote again by 238 to 141, and restoring the alternative vote by the narrowest of margins (195 to 194), although only for borough constituencies. On 6 February, the Lords then removed the alternative vote for a third time and the Commons again rejected its amendments, after which a compromise was quickly agreed.
36 Liberal and Labour MPs feared losing the bill entirely, and did not wish to risk the attainment of their pre‐war objectives of adult male suffrage and the restriction of plural voting by insisting on the alternative vote, while the peers did not wish to press their amendments to the point of provoking a constitutional crisis. The result was that the alternative vote was dropped from the bill entirely, as was the single transferable vote for the territorial constituencies, and the provision was inserted that a royal commission be appointed to draw up a scheme for the application of proportional representation in 100 seats.
37 The Representation of the People Act then completed its passage, and received the royal assent on 6 February 1918.
