Last updated: 7 February 2003

Are you unwittingly slowing down responses from Government Ministers by writing to them at the wrong address?  Of course you're not!  Well, just read on to make sure, why don't you.

The over-riding rule is that if you are writing to a Minister in his/her ministerial role (rather than as MP for Wherever) ALWAYS address the envelope to the Ministry or Department...NEVER to the House of Commons.

Obvious?  Well, you would have thought so but this item is prompted by a heart-felt plea from someone who works in the constituency office of a Minister (both of them shall remain anonymous).  She says she is wasting vital time every day readdressing letters which have mistakenly arrived at the constituency office but which are for the Minister in her ministerial role rather than as an MP.  She also reckons this "adds nearly a week to the response time".

The mis-delivery is not the fault of the Commons Post Office.  It's the fault of the person addressing the envelope (or the address box at the top left of the letter).  So, here are a couple of simple guidelines;  sorry if this is a bit egg-suckingly simplistic but it seems that not everyone has quite grasped the complexities yet.

1.  If you are sending a letter to a Minister from within the parliamentary estate:

• address it to him/her at the Departmental address, NOT at the House

• put it in an unstamped envelope

• write IDS (Internal Delivery Service) at the top right hand corner (where the stamp would have been), and 

• put it in one of the Internal Delivery boxes on the estate.  The IDS make frequent collections from the Palace of Westminster Post Office for delivery to all Ministries and Departments.

2.  If you are sending a letter to a Minister from anywhere outside the parliamentary estate, including from a constituency office:

• address it to him/her at the Departmental address, NOT at the House

• put it in a House of Commons pre-stamped envelope

• post it in the usual way!

In case you are not totally convinced, here's what happens to letters addressed to, say, Freda Bloggs MP, Minister for This and That, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA:  they will be delivered to Freda B at whichever address she has specified for that day.  It could be her home, or the constituency office, or her office on the parliamentary estate, or a hotel in Blackpool during the conference season or goodness knows wherever else she has selected for that day.  Then some poor sod (her staff - someone like you), having opened it and seen that it is for Minister Freda B (rather than for Constituency MP Freda B), has to forward it to Freda's Ministry address.

Goddit?  Good.

PS.  You don't have a list of all the addresses for Ministers?  Help is at hand.  Get hold of a copy of that indispensable publication, "List of Ministerial Responsibilities", available from all the Vote Offices  or you can see the October 2002 version of the List of Ministerial Responsibilities online at: http://www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/central/2002/lmr09.pdf