Along with many other Anglo-Jewish communal leaders, Nathan was a founding member of the Central British Fund for German Jewry renamed some years after his death.

[3] Labour won the seat at the 1935 general election but Nathan was not their candidate; he opted instead to stand in Cardiff South.

He in turn stepped down in 1940 to make way for Ernest Bevin, and was created a hereditary peer as Baron Nathan, of Churt in the County of Surrey on 28 June 1940.

[4] He continued in active politics from the House of Lords, serving as Under-Secretary of State for War (1945–46 and Minister for Civil Aviation (4 October 1946 – 31 May 1948).

His daughter, Joyce, was married to Bernard Waley-Cohen, later the 633rd Lord Mayor of London, and the son of Robert Waley Cohen, an industrialist and fellow leading member of the Central British Fund for German Jewry.