Carlisle was an unsuccessful Conservative candidate at the 1958 St Helens by-election, and lost again in the subsequent 1959 general election.
He was eventually selected for the Cheshire constituency of Runcorn, a rural and suburban seat which he won at the 1964 general election.
Tall, affable and easy-going, he was a more relaxed figure in Edward Heath's party than later under the first female prime minister.
His reasoning on the question of capital punishment was revealed in a Commons speech made twenty years later on 1 April 1987: There are strong moral objections to the death penalty and to the state taking life.
Carlisle steered the government Criminal Justice bill through, and warned the prison establishments to improve institutional discipline.
The Conservatives were out of office after February 1974 general election, but the new Labour government retained his services on the Franks Immigration committee, as he was practising as a QC.
Former Labour Cabinet Minister Clare Short has said that it was her low opinion of Carlisle, whom she worked under as a civil servant, which persuaded her to enter elected politics herself because she believed she "could do better" than many of the MPs she dealt with.
On his resignation Bill Cash MP remarked "he has done a great service to his office,"[5] at a time when prison policy was hardening, with a requirement for longer sentences from Criminal Justice Acts.
He was instrumental in amending a justice bill reforming suspended sentences for youth offenders, who had been treated as adults.