 On 23 January 1931 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Rochester, of Rochester in the County of Kent.He was a supporter of Ramsay MacDonald after the latter formed the National Government in August 1931 and his subsequent expulsion from the Labour Party, and became a member of the National Labour Organisation, founded the same year by supporters of MacDonald.In November 1931 MacDonald appointed him Paymaster-General in the National Government.