FORMER cabinet member Peter Mandelson yesterday quit the House of Commons – and applied to become steward and bailiff of the Manor of Northstead in Scarborough instead.
The former Hartlepool MP, who is now Britain's European Union commissioner, had to undergo a bizarre technical procedure to quit the House of Commons.
MPs cannot resign their seats, so in order to leave the Commons they have to disqualify themselv
es from being a member.
They must apply to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for an office of profit under the Crown, which makes them ineligible to sit in the Commons.
The two offices traditionally used are that of steward and bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham – or of the Manor of Northstead, which stood on the site of Peasholm Park.
Although they are billed as "offices of profit" they do not generate any income. However, if anyone applies for either position their membership of the House of Commons automatically lapses.
Labour's Terry Davis, who had represented Birmingham Hodge Hill, applied for the Chiltern Hundreds in June to enable him to take up the post of secretary general of the Council of Europe.
This meant Mr Mandelson had to apply for the stewardship of the Manor of Northstead.
The last person who applied for the Manor of Northstead was rebel former Labour MP Dennis Canavan, Falkirk, in 2000 after he had been elected to the Scottish Parliament.
Mr Mandelson, who resigned in 1998 over the Geoffrey Robinson house loan affair and again in 2001 over the Hinduja passports affair, is the latest in a long line of MPs to apply to became steward and bailiff of the Manor of Northstead in Scarborough.
They include the Rev Ian Paisley, Enoch Powell, Matthew Parris, Robert Kilroy-Silk, Leon Brittan, Bryan Gould and Piers Merchant.
Throughout the 1700s and well into the 1800s, the Crown had many posts such as stewardship of royal manors which served Parliament's purpose. Gradually their numbers declined so that after 1865 only two remained in use – those of the Chiltern Hundreds in Buckinghamshire and that at Northstead Manor.
Charles I gave it to his queen, Henrietta Maria, and Charles II conferred the same favour on his wife, the Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza.
However, it was not until 1844 that the appointment of the steward or bailiff of Northstead manor was first used by a member of the Commons to vacate his seat.
Even after the steward's nominal salary was finally stopped in 1913, Northstead manor continued in use as a let-out for MPs.
During the 1920s the whole of the Northstead estate of 468 acres was purchased from the Crown by Scarb-orough Corporation, the forerunner of Scarborough Council.
