Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bridges of Headley on 22 September (HL2151), on what date the convention that peers who are ministerial special advisers do not speak on the floor of the House was first established.

Lord Hart of Chilton entered the House in 2004 and made his maiden speech only after ceasing to be a ministerial special adviser in 2007. This approach, based on advice from the then Clerk of the Parliaments, has been accepted practice since then.