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Final years

In the last important parliamentary intervention of his career, which occurred during the crucial Norway Debate of May 1940, Lloyd George made a powerful speech that helped to undermine Chamberlain as prime minister and to pave the way for the ascendancy of Churchill. Churchill offered Lloyd George the agriculture portfolio in his Cabinet, initially subject to Chamberlain's approval, but this condition and, once Chamberlain had withdrawn his opposition, Lloyd George's unwillingness to sit alongside Chamberlain, led him to refuse. Lloyd George also thought that Britain's chances in the war were dim, and he remarked to his secretary: "I shall wait until Winston is bust."

A pessimistic speech by Lloyd George on 7 May 1941 led Churchill to compare him with Philippe Pétain who had become a Nazi puppet. He cast his last vote in the Commons on 18 February 1943 as one of the 121 MPs (97 Labour) condemning the Government for its failure to back the Beveridge Report.

He continued to attend Castle Street Baptist Chapel in London, but by 1944 he was weakening rapidly and his voice failing. He was still an MP but, concerned about his health (he felt physically unable to campaign) and the wartime social changes in the constituency, he feared Carnarvon Boroughs might go Conservative at the next election.

It was announced in the 1945 New Year Honours that Lloyd George would be made an earl, which he was as Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, and Viscount Gwynedd, of Dwyfor in the County of Caernarvonshire on 12 February 1945; however, he did not live long enough to take his seat in the House of Lords.