[4] Church first stood for Parliament at the 1922 general election, when he lost by a 35:65 ratio of votes in the Conservative-held part-rural, suburban Spelthorne seat.

[5] At the 1923 general election he won the mainly urban Leyton East seat by a 7% margin from Unionist (Conservative) E.E.

[2][8] In July 1931, Church tabled a Ten Minute Rule Bill promoted by the Eugenics Education Society.

[9] Although the eugenics measure was "a Bill to enable mental defectives to undergo sterilizing operations or sterilizing treatment upon their own application, or that of their spouses or parents or guardians,"[10] its underlying purpose was the eventual introduction of compulsory sterilisation,[9] with Church describing it as "an experiment on a small scale so that later on we may have the benefit of the results and experience gained in order to come to conclusions before bringing in a Bill for the compulsory sterilisation of the unfit.

In March 1934 he was appointed as a member of a Royal Commission established to enquire into the organisation and work of the University of Durham.