As a constitutional convention, members of Parliament (MPs) sitting in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom are not formally permitted to resign their seats.[1] To circumvent this prohibition, MPs who wish to step down are instead appointed to an "office of profit under the Crown"; by law, such an appointment disqualifies them from sitting in Parliament. For this purpose, a legal fiction has been maintained where two unpaid sinecures are considered to be offices of profit: Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds, and Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.
Since the passage of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, general "offices for profit" are no longer disqualifying, but the explicit list of hundreds of disqualifying offices contained in the act now includes the two stewardships so this convention can be continued. It is rare for an MP to be nominated to an legitimate office of profit on the disqualifying list; no MPs have lost their seat by being appointed to an actual office since 1981, when Thomas Williams became a judge.[2]
- ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 163–164.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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