Resignation from the British House of Commons

Members of Parliament (MPs) sitting in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom are technically not permitted to resign their seats. To circumvent this prohibition, a legal fiction is used. Formerly, appointment to an "office of profit under the Crown" disqualified an individual from sitting as an MP. Hence an MP who wished to give up his or her seat would ask to be appointed to such an office – one which no longer has any duties associated with it – thus causing disqualification and vacation of the seat. Offices of profit are no longer disqualifying, but appointment to various specified offices is, and two offices are specified as disqualifying for this purpose: the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds and of the Manor of Northstead.

Members of Parliament (MPs) wishing to give up their seats before a general election are commonly appointed to an office which causes the MP to be disqualified from membership. A number of offices have been used for this purpose historically, all of them "offices of profit under the Crown", but only two are currently used. These are:

The offices are only nominally paid. Generally they are vacant until they are again used to effect the resignation of an MP. The Chiltern Hundreds is usually used alternately with the Manor of Northstead, which makes it possible for two members to resign at the same time. When more than two MPs resign at a time, as for example happened when 15 Ulster Unionist MPs resigned in protest at the Anglo-Irish Agreement on 17 December 1985, the resignations are in theory not simultaneous but instead spread throughout the day, each member holding one of the offices for a short time. The former office-holder may subsequently be re-elected to Parliament.

In 1624 a resolution was passed that Members of Parliament were given a trust to represent their constituencies and therefore were not at liberty to resign them. In those days, Parliament was a far weaker institution. Members had to travel to Westminster over a primitive road system, a real problem for those who represented more distant constituencies. While at Westminster (and while in transit to and from) an MP could not effectively tend to personal business back home, yet for their services MPs received only nominal pay. Therefore, service in Parliament was sometimes considered a resented duty rather than a position of power and honour.

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