At the by-election the following year, after Astor succeeded to a peerage, he contested the seat again but was again defeated. In his final try for Parliament, in 1955, he narrowly lost the new seat of Eastleigh to the Conservatives.
At the 1945 general election, he was elected as Member of Parliament for Wycombe. He held the seat at the 1950 general election, but at the 1951 general election he was defeated by the Conservative candidate William Astor.