All ministers find it useful to have a sense of departmental activity, progress and challenges outside their own brief, and private office teams play a crucial role in helping them to stay abreast of those wider developments. But this is particularly vital for Lords ministers, who will be expected to answer all questions about the work of their department in the upper House, not just those relevant to their specific portfolio.

However, Lords ministers say that officials are usually more focused on the reception of policies in the Commons, rather than the Lords, and that it can be a struggle to get sufficient levels of briefing. Push the rest of the department to provide briefing materials in enough depth for the minister to carry out their duties in the chamber, and remind them to pay attention to how issues or legislation might play out there.

"One of the things I think my private office really managed to do was to put the Lords and Lords’ business on the map."

Lord Faulks, Minister of state for civil justice and legal policy (2014–16)