MPs are not permitted to resign – so how is it possible?
Technically speaking, it is not permitted for members of Parliament to give up their seats, however as David Cameron has demonstrated, it is entirely possible.
The prohibition dates back to 1624 when the House of Commons resolved that “no man, being lawfully chosen, can refuse the place” of being an MP.
Back in the seventeenth century, the role of the MP was seen as more of a burden than a position of power as it is now – so disallowing MPs to relinquish their role was a means of keeping them in the position.
However, the House of Commons feared that any MP who was on the Crown’s payroll would have his independence compromised.
Their solution to this was to resolve that “no Member of this House shall accept any Office, Place of Profit, from the Crown, without leave of this house, or any Promise of any such Office, or Place of Profit, during such time as he shall continue a Member of this House”
In the eighteenth century, it was realised that the ban on Crown officeholders holding the position of an MP could be used as a loophole, allowing MPs to resign.
It became customary to use Crown stewardships for this purpose since they were purely nominal offices.
Although there used to be a number of these offices, only two of them remain in use – the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham and the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.
In theory, the Chancellor of the Exchequer could refuse an application for appointment to one of the Crown Stewardships, but that hasn’t happened since 1842.
So rather than having no job, Mr Cameron will instead soon be officially appointed to a new, temporary, job. It’s a zero hours contract that even the Labour Party can support.
