Hall was elected at the
1929 general election as
Member of Parliament (MP) for
Portsmouth Central, but lost his seat two years later at the
1931 election, when Labour split over the formation of the
National Government. He returned to the
House of Commons in 1939, at a
by-election in the
Colne Valley constituency, and held the seat until he died in office in 1962, aged 75. His son,
John Hall, was a flying ace with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, and went on to have prominent legal career in the postwar period. In
Clement Attlee's post-war government, Hall served as
financial secretary to the Treasury from 1945 to 1950. He was made a
privy councillor in 1947. After leaving government in 1950, he served as chair of the
Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP)'s liaison committee, a position equivalent to the current role of Chairman of the PLP. Hall served on the Board of Governors of the
British Film Institute in the 1940s, prior to his appointment to the
Attlee government. ==References==