On 16 January 1934, on MacDonald's initiative, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Elton, of Headington in the County of Oxford. Elton's somewhat controversial elevation to the peerage caused fellow historian Lewis Namier to remark: "In the eighteenth-century peers made their tutors under-secretaries; in the twentieth under-secretaries make their tutors peers" (Malcolm MacDonald was at the time serving as Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs).
It was on 16 January 1934 that Malcolm MacDonald was promoted to the peerage by MacDonald's recommendation, becoming Baron Elton, of Headington in Oxfordshire. Historian Lewis Namier noted: "In the past, peers would often appoint their tutors as under-secretaries; now it is under-secretaries who are being appointed as peers" (Malcolm MacDonald held the position of Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs at that time).