Until 1918, MPs appointed to ministerial office had to resign their seat and win it back in a by-election.
The formation of Asquith’s first coalition ministry in May 1915 triggered a debate in the House of Commons on the merits of the rule. It’s fascinating.
From a contemporary perspective, the idea that a minister should have to win their seat back looks a little bit strange. That’s partly because the rule changed a century ago. But it’s also because of changes in the makeup of parliament already apparent in 1915.
With the formation of the coalition, several senior Conservative and Unionist MPs had to return to their constituencies for by-elections. Given the pressure of wartime, the government proposed a Bill to suspend the rule until the end of the war.
Richard Holt MP (Liberal) complained that the formation of a coalition was exactly what the rule was for – “to give constituencies a check upon a deal between the Government and the Opposition”. As far as he was concerned, Liberal voters might reasonably expect a Liberal MP to join a Liberal government, but Conservative or Unionist voters might not approve of their MP taking office under a pro-Home Rule Liberal Premier.
Here’s where party politics comes in: until the late 19th Century, a significant proportion of MPs sat as independents. Voters who returned an independent MP could not, by definition, expect them to join any particular administration. By 1915, however, most MPs stood for election as members of a political party. So, as Holt pointed out, the rule was only really justifiable in the context of a coalition government.
Others raised different objections. Arthur Lynch (Irish Party) argued that “when a Member is elected…his constituents…form a measure of the scope of his activities. When he is raised to Cabinet rank his relation to this House and his relation to his constituents both change”.
For Lynch, the issue was one of roles and activities; ministers and MPs had different duties towards the House, the government and the country, and voters should have the chance to decide whether they wanted to substitute one for the other.
Sir William Byles (Liberal) raised a third objection. He pointed out that an MP “is the servant of his constituents” but a minister “takes service under a new master” – the Crown. For that reason, he too opposed changing the rule.
In particular, Byles pointed out that a new minister would “take service at a large salary”.
In 1915, MPs earned £400 a year, ministers started on £5000 – £42,000 and £525,000 in today’s money, a much bigger gap than we are used to. When Sir Edward Carson, the Unionist MP for Dublin University, became Attorney General, his political salary increased 45-fold to £18,000 a year – £1.9 million today – the intention, of course, was to ensure that senior lawyers who might ordinarily combine a seat in parliament with continuing their private practice would be willing to forego their normal fees and join the ministry.
You can see why Byles thought a new minister might feel more loyalty to his new master than to the old one.
The arguments in favour of change rested on three grounds.
First, the Home Secretary Sir John Simon pointed out that the rule was causing pointless disruption and delay at a critical juncture in the war. Given the fact the new ministers were joining a coalition comprised of both major parties, the chances of a successful by-election challenge were minimal.
At the same time, the by-elections distracted new ministers from their duties and prevented them speaking in parliament. This was true even in Carson’s case. As a Unionist joining a pro-Home Rule government, he might have faced a challenge.
But from whom? Given his status as de facto Unionist leader, the only realistic answer was a pro-Home Rule Irish nationalist.
Second, Simon and others pointed out that the rule was archaic. Even Byles conceded that parliament had moved on from the 18th Century, when the rule was introduced: “there used to be the King’s party and the People’s party, and we have not got that now”.
As Simon put it, “It is beyond all dispute that the origin of such a provision is to be found in the history of past struggles between the Crown and Parliament. Such an explanation has, happily, long ago lost any semblance of reality”.
A third, and particularly interesting argument, came from Edward Hemmerde (Liberal) – a man who had himself been accused of neglecting constituency business at the behest (backed with financial inducements) of the Whips’ office. Hemmerde pointed out that “often has it been said that so-and-so cannot be appointed because his majority at the last election was so small”.
In other words, the pool of potential ministers was limited by the rule to MPs whose return at a by-election would not be in doubt. In times of intense and close party competition, like the early 20th Century, such a limitation might make forming a government immensely complicated if not prohibitively difficult.
Imagine the impact on the May government if every new minister had had to win a by-election!
In the end, the House agreed to suspend the rule during the war for MPs elected prior to 1 May 1915, and later overturned it entirely. The arguments for change won out over those for continuity.
Still, it’s an interesting debate in terms of what it reveals about shifting understandings of the roles of MPs and ministers, and their relation both to the conditions of war and the party system – with the element of Ireland also in the mix. It’s also interesting that the final reform came at the same time as the partial democratisation of elections – 1918 saw all adult men eligible to vote for the first time.
So the by-election rule only ever applied in the context of a restricted franchise…a context in which winning elections was as much about making sure your supporters qualified to vote and your opponents’ supporters didn’t as it was about parties, policies and changing voters’ minds.
James Strong 