on 12 December 1900. Politics In 1900, Lee returned to England and embarked upon a political career. He was elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament for the Hampshire constituency of Fareham in the 1900 general election while still a regular officer. He represented Fareham for the next 18 years until his elevation to the peerage. He served as Civil Lord of the Admiralty from 1903 to 1905 under William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne. He also continued military service during this period as a member of the Volunteer Force. The resignation of Arthur Balfour as Conservative Prime Minister in favour of Liberal Leader, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, in 1905 and the defeat of the Conservative Party in the elections of 1906 and 1910 postponed Lee's further office for a decade. He was Chairman of the Parliamentary Aerial Defence Committee, from 1910 to 1914. He also introduced the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1912. First World War At the beginning of the First World War Lee served as Lord Kitchener's personal commissioner to report on the Army Medical Services in France, with the rank of temporary colonel. From October 1915 he served David Lloyd George at the Ministry of Munitions, and followed him to the War Office in 1916. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 12 July 1916. On 8 June 1917, with Lloyd George now Prime Minister, Lee became Director-General of Food Production under Rowland Prothero as President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. Having then left the army he was permitted to retain the honorary rank of colonel. He was recognised for his work on 1 January 1918, being appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire. He was elevated to the peerage on 9 July that year as Baron Lee of Fareham, of Chequers in the County of Buckinghamshire, shortly before he resigned as Director-General of Food Production after disagreements with Prothero. He then became a member of the House of Lords. Joins Cabinet Lee joined the Cabinet and the Privy Council in August 1919 when he was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, succeeding Prothero. He became First Lord of the Admiralty on 18 February 1921, and was selected as a second British delegate to attend the Washington Naval Conference, along with Arthur Balfour, later that year. He resigned from Lloyd George's government in 1922, and was promoted to