The sitting Labour MP for the marginal South West Norfolk constituency, Sidney Dye, was killed in a car accident in December 1958.

With a largely agricultural constituency, he concentrated on issues such as land nationalisation and abolition of tied cottages, and succeeded in winning by 1,354 votes.

He remained involved in his union and in May 1960 was elected as first Vice President; at the end of 1960 Hilton was part of a six-member delegation to Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

He replaced Edwin Gooch, who had been Labour MP for North Norfolk until his death, as President of the National Union of Agricultural Workers.

He was appointed as government member of the board of the British Sugar Corporation Ltd in 1965, and later that year on 11 May was created a life peer, taking the title Baron Hilton of Upton, of Swaffham in the County of Norfolk.

He was also appointed to the East Anglia Economic Planning Council in 1966, and served as Chairman of the National Brotherhood Movement within the Methodist Church in 1967.