The resignation of Nadine Dorries prompted questions about how, and in what circumstances, an MP should leave office. In this post (the first of two), former senior House of Commons official David Natzler argues that it is wrong for the executive to have the final say over MPs’ departures, and that MPs should not be offered peerages until after they have left the Commons.

On 25 August the backbencher and former Cabinet minister Nadine Dorries, MP for Mid Bedfordshire, announced that she had formally applied for the position of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds. The appointment was duly made on 29 August and she ceased thereby to be a member of the House of Commons. The writ for a by-election was ordered when the Commons returned from its summer recess on 4 September, with delayed effect until 12 September: unlike the writ for Rutherglen and Hamilton West caused by the successful recall petition against Margaret Ferrier, which was ordered at the same sitting but with immediate effect. As a result, the by-election to replace Dorries will not be held until 19 October. This was in the news primarily because more than 10 weeks earlier, on 9 June, Dorries stated that she had informed the Conservative Chief Whip that she was ‘standing down as the MP for Mid Bedfordshire with immediate effect’. That day saw the publication of the resignation honours list of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and both she and fellow Johnson loyalist Nigel Adams had been widely tipped to receive peerages. Neither did, apparently following doubts expressed by the House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC). Johnson announced his resignation as an MP later on 9 June and was appointed to the Chiltern Hundreds on 12 June. Adams announced his resignation on 10 June – using identical words to Dorries about ‘standing down with immediate effect’ –  and was duly appointed as Steward of the Manor of Northstead on 13 June.

It soon became clear that Dorries had not actually resigned and that she had no immediate intention of doing so. On 14 June she said that it was still ‘absolutely my intention to resign’ but that she was awaiting information she had sought from the Cabinet Office and HOLAC on her non-appointment to the House of Lords. On 29 June she stated on her weekly TalkTV show that ‘I’ve resigned… I’ll be gone long before the next general election.’ Criticism mounted from Conservative MPs, and within her constituency, most conspicuously from first Flitwick and then Shefford town councils, both of whom published letters they had sent to her. These focused primarily on allegations that she was failing in her duties to her constituents, both in terms of her failure over a period of many months to speak or vote or attend the House of Commons, and of her refusal to hold constituency surgeries or play an active role in the constituency. Rishi Sunak suggested during an LBC radio interview on 2 August that her constituents were not being properly represented, and thereafter several ministers and backbench Conservatives were similarly critical. She continued however to receive the Conservative whip. And of course, she continued to receive her salary. 

Political drama aside, does this story hold any lessons for the way parliament and the constitution should function? I believe that it illustrates several issues, although they are not all capable of resolution: specifically, the grant of peerages to MPs; the practice and process used by MPs to resign their seats; the expectations of attendance of MPs at Westminster; and MPs’ work for and in their constituencies. The first two of these matters will be covered in this post. The latter two will be discussed in a post that will appear on this blog tomorrow.

Leaving the Commons for the Lords

Over the centuries there have been conflicts arising from the basic constitutional tenet that you cannot be a member of both Houses of Parliament at the same time. In recent history elected members of the Commons fought to reform or abolish the process of automatic disqualification as a result of an MP succeeding to a hereditary peerage. The Peerage Act 1963 finally allowed for the disclaiming of hereditary peerages, allowing Tony Benn and Alec Douglas-Home, among others, to sit as members of the House of Commons. As recently as 1994 Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, the then MP for Edinburgh West, succeeded his uncle as Earl of Selkirk. He disclaimed the peerage so that he could remain an MP. On leaving the Commons in 1997 he was given a life peerage as Lord Selkirk of Douglas; and later in the same year he was elected to the new Scottish Parliament. Viscount (John) Thurso is unique in having served as a hereditary peer in the pre-1999 House of Lords; as an MP from 2001 to 2015; and as an elected hereditary peer from 2016 to the present. This is all part of the complex web of bicameralism.

Adams and Dorries are of course not the first MPs or former MPs not to get an anticipated peerage: there was much discussion over the possible award of a peerage for former Speaker John Bercow after he had left the Commons, but one was not forthcoming. But Dorries must surely be the first MP to have resigned – so far as can be discovered – in protest at not being granted a peerage.

There were reports in November 2022 that the idea had been floated that Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list could include ‘delayed action’ peerages to several MPs, so as not to cause immediate by-elections. No government willingly brings on a by-election in a seat its party holds. History shows that they will either lose the seat or that even if they hold it – as in Johnson’s seat at Uxbridge and South Ruislip – there will be a strong swing against them. The peerages would presumably have been announced but then not actually granted until a general election was called. It was reported that HOLAC had refused to consider such post-dated peerages on the simple grounds that even if it could support nomination of the individual when originally asked, it could not know whether it would have the same view at some unknown point in the future. The view was expressed by others that the proposed delay, a political post-dated cheque, was inherently undesirable and even corrupt. The Dorries case has illustrated that such a practice might also lead to a pre-nominated MP losing interest in their role as a member of the Commons.

Some retiring or defeated MPs will no doubt be hoping for a peerage when this parliament ends. But they have no bankable assurances. Is it right that an elected member of the Commons should ever be given a seat in the mostly unelected House of Lords? It seems to show scant respect for the electorate that an MP should regard the award of a peerage as some sort of promotion, trumping their duty to serve out a parliament as a member of the Commons. To be sure, it happens only rarely, not least because it causes a by-election. It is a device which has been used in the past to create a vacancy in a constituency which can be filled by a favoured individual, such as the award of a peerage in December 1964 to Reginald Sorensen, the long-serving MP for Leyton, to provide a seat for Foreign Secretary Patrick Gordon Walker, who had unexpectedly lost his seat in the October 1964 General Election. But the fact that serious consideration was given to the idea of post-dated peerages for sitting MPs suggests that the time is ripe for the promulgation by HOLAC of a clear rule that peerages for sitting MPs are not an acceptable practice, save in exceptional cases, such as retired Speakers. An MP who resigned in the expectation of a peerage should have to wait at least until the next parliament to be elevated.

Resigning as an MP

Dorries and others, including the BBC, have described the process of an MP’s resignation as ‘arcane’, possibly implying to some observers that the process itself contributed to the imbroglio. It does sound arcane. It is not in fact at all difficult to resign membership of the House of Commons, but the process reflects a time when resignation was considered in some ways inappropriate. Erskine May baldly asserts the historical position that ‘it is a settled principle of parliamentary law that a Member, after being duly chosen, cannot relinquish his or her seat; and, in order to evade this restriction a Member who wishes to retire is appointed to an office under the Crown’. Statute – consolidated in 1975 into the House of Commons Disqualification Act – provides that the two meaningless offices of Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds and Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead are treated as disqualifying offices for membership, alongside the genuine ones such as judicial or civil office. Section 8 of the Act provides that an MP is not required to accept a disqualifying office, to avert the temptation for ministers to effectively dismiss an MP by making such an appointment. 

The procedure is in the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Treasury officials: the Chancellor’s signature on the appointment letter disqualifies the MP and vacates the seat. The Treasury then issues a terse press release. In recent years the practice has been established of a subsequent note at the back of the daily procedural record of the Commons, the Votes and Proceedings, once official notification is received. There is no notification to the Commons of a resignation, unlike a death or a vacancy caused by a recall petition.

The procedures are run by the Treasury with total propriety. They occasionally excite comment. They frequently involve the conferral of an office on an MP who is resigning because of misconduct: the last two holders of the office of Steward of the Manor of Northstead are David Warburton and Chris Pincher, the disgraced former MPs for Somerton and Frome and Tamworth respectively. In the nineteenth century William Gladstone and several other Chancellors jibbed at making such appointments in more lurid cases, although there is now agreed to be no element of choice in the matter. In a rather unedifying piece of political theatre, David Cameron mocked the retiring MP for West Belfast, Gerry Adams, who in common with all Sinn Féin MPs had never taken the oath of allegiance and therefore never sat in the Commons, for having accepted an office of profit under the Crown, the authority of which he did not accept. It can also affect the ability of the departing MP to run for another (or the same) seat: in 2008 David Davis was first appointed to the Chiltern Hundreds and then released at his request so that he could be a candidate in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election brought about by his departure.

Beyond these minor issues, however, there is one fundamental defect in the procedure. It is inherently inappropriate that something as central to the House of Commons as a change in its membership should be determined (even pro forma) by an executive ministerial act and announced in a government press release. Most other parliaments operate a system of resignation by formal written (and sometimes witnessed) notification to the Speaker. Under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, a peer wishing to resign gives a witnessed written notice to the Clerk of the Parliaments (the most senior clerk in the House of Lords). In the UK, the statutes establishing the three devolved legislatures provide for a member to resign at any time by giving notice in writing to the Presiding Officer. Local councillors give notice to ‘the proper officer of the council’. I know of no good reason not to have a straightforward system of resignation for members of the House of Commons, save that it would require very simple primary legislation.

This is the first in a two-part series on some of the constitutional issues raised by recent resignations from the Commons. The second post will appear on this blog tomorrow. David has also authored numerous posts about parliament and how it operates, which are also available on this blog

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About the author

David Natzler is a former Clerk of the House of Commons whose career in parliament spanned over 40 years.

Featured image: PMQs 13/09/23 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by UK Parliament.