Summerskill served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (1945–50) and as Minister of National Insurance (1950–51). She was a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee from 1944 to 1958 and served as Chair of the Labour Party 1954-5). She left the House of Commons in 1961 and was created a life peer as Baroness Summerskill, "of Ken Wood in the County of London" on 4 February 1961. Furthermore, she was awarded an additional honour being initiated into the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 1966.