How to meet an MP or minister

A meeting with an MP, peer or minister is short, often cut shorter, and one of many in their week. Whether it leads anywhere is mostly decided before you arrive and after you leave: knowing what you want and who can give it, showing what the issue means for their constituency or department, and following up so that something happens.

This guide is for public affairs, government relations and policy teams meeting MPs, peers and ministers at Westminster. Most of it applies equally to members and ministers in the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The short version

• Have one clear request. Something the person can do: write to a minister, table a written question, visit your site. Even an introductory meeting should end with something agreed.
• Meet the person who can act. Start from the decision you want, then work out who can affect it.
• Ask in writing. Say what it’s about, who’s coming, how long you need and when you’re free.
• Do your research. Their maiden speech, their committees, what they’ve said lately, and what your organisation means to their constituency.
• Lead with the request. Plan for 30 minutes and make the first five count, in case you get fewer.
• Leave one page behind. The request, the local facts and a contact.
• Follow up within a day or two, and record what was said and agreed.
• Stay in touch before you need them. The meeting you get in a crisis depends on the ones you had before it.

Decide who you need to meet

Start with the decision you want to influence, then work out who can affect it. Your MP can’t approve a grant, but can take your case to the minister who can. A minister can decide, but may send you to officials or a special adviser first. Health, education, planning and much else are devolved, so in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the decision may sit in Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast rather than Westminster. The most useful meeting isn’t always with the most senior person.

Take the meeting with officials or a special adviser. If a minister’s office offers one instead, accept it. Officials know the detail and write the advice the minister reads; special advisers know the politics. A good meeting with either can do more than a rushed one with the minister.

Don’t skip your MP. Your MP represents your sites and staff, whatever their party. A letter from an MP or peer to a minister gets a reply from a minister; a letter from an organisation is usually answered by officials (the Cabinet Office’s guide to handling correspondence). If a minister is hard to reach, your MP can write to them or table a question for you.

Plan for more than one meeting. For a bill or a contested decision, you may need the minister’s office, the shadow minister, the select committee and, once the bill reaches the Lords, peers. Our guide to building a government relations strategy covers how to decide where to start.

Ask for the meeting

Ask in writing, even if you call first. Most offices will ask for an email anyway, and it gives whoever manages the diary something to pass on. Keep the letter to one page and put the request in the first paragraph; Writing to MPs: the essential UK checklist covers the letter itself. For a meeting, make sure it also says:

• What it’s about, in one line, and the request you’ll bring.
• Why this person: the connection to their constituency, department or committee.
• Who’s coming, with their roles. If constituents or local staff are coming, say so.
• How long: ask for 30 minutes, and say you can work with less.
• Where: their constituency office, Westminster, your site or a video call.
• When: two or three windows of dates, a few weeks out for an MP and longer for a minister.
• Who to contact to confirm, with a direct phone number.

Send it to the MP’s office: Parliament lists every MP’s and peer’s contact details, and Find your MP gives the MP for any postcode. For a minister, write to the department, addressed to the minister. The Ministerial Code says meetings on official business should normally be arranged through the department, where the minister’s private office runs the diary. GOV.UK lists ministers and their departments.

Say which role you’re asking them to meet in. Most ministers are also constituency MPs (a minister in the Lords isn’t). Say which role your request is for: a constituency matter goes to their constituency office, departmental business to the department.

Follow up once. If you haven’t heard back after a week or two, call the office and ask, politely, whether the request reached the right person.

Choose the time and place

Check the sitting days and recesses. The Commons sits Monday to Thursday, and on some Fridays for private members’ bills. Most MPs spend Fridays and recesses in their constituencies, so your MP is often easier to see at home; a minister or peer may be easier to catch in London midweek. Parliament publishes the Commons recess dates, and the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assembly publish their own.

Plan around questions. Each department answers oral questions in the Commons on a rota, and its ministers spend time beforehand preparing. Prime Minister’s Questions is at noon every sitting Wednesday. Check the rota before you suggest a date.

Expect the division bell. When the Commons votes, the division bell rings across the parliamentary estate and MPs have about eight minutes to reach the lobby, often for several votes in a row. If the bell rings, stop, let them go, and pick up where you left off when they come back.

Avoid the crowded weeks. Around a Budget or a King’s Speech, and in the last days before a recess, ministers’ and shadow ministers’ diaries fill and a request may wait. Party conferences, in September and early October, are good for a conversation at a fringe event, less so for a meeting.

Choose the place with care. Meeting your MP at your own site works well: they see the people and the work, and they remember it. Ministers usually meet outside organisations at their department. At Westminster, every visitor passes airport-style security screening, so allow at least 30 minutes and bring photo ID. Beyond the public areas you must be escorted by a passholder at all times, so someone from the MP’s office will meet you (Parliament’s guidance for visitors).

Do your research

Never walk into a meeting knowing nothing about the person across the table. Before you go, find out:

• Their record. Read their maiden speech, and refer to it if it fits the conversation. Look up what they’ve said about your issue in Hansard, the written questions they’ve tabled, the early day motions they’ve signed and what they post. Check their recent coverage in the press.
• Their role. Their ministerial or shadow brief, the select committees and all-party parliamentary groups they belong to, and their positions in their party.
• Their interests. The Register of Members’ Financial Interests, or for a peer the Register of Lords’ Interests, lists their outside roles and declared interests.
• Their constituency. The main industries and employers (the House of Commons Library publishes constituency data on businesses and jobs), their majority, and the local issues of the moment.
• What you mean to it. How many of your customers, staff, members or sites are in their constituency? If you keep a list of stakeholders by constituency, or have any figure you can break down by constituency, include it in what you send the MP. It shows how your issue affects their community. If you have addresses or postcodes, GovConnex can map them to Westminster constituencies.
• Your history with them. Who in your organisation has met them, what was discussed, and anything promised on either side.
• What others are telling them. Evidence to a relevant select committee inquiry, consultation responses, statements from groups who disagree with you, and what the Opposition and other parties are saying.

If you use GovConnex, Relationships will draft a brief on anyone you’re meeting when you ask: what they’ve said about your issue, their roles and committees, and your team’s history with them, each point linked to its source.

Prepare your case

Decide the request. Make it something this person can do: write to a minister, table a written question, seek a debate, raise it with colleagues in their party, support an amendment, visit your site, or have their caseworker or researcher meet your policy lead. One main request is enough.

Tailor your message to their priorities. Don’t just hand over your annual report. Make the case in terms of what the MP cares about: the jobs your organisation creates, if they champion local employment, or your customers’ positive impact on the environment, if that is their focus. For a minister, connect it to the department and the decision in front of them; for a shadow minister, to the policy they’re developing.

Lead with what’s local. One credible figure from their constituency counts for more than a national statistic.

Have a 30-second version. The problem, what you propose and why it matters to them, ready for the moment the meeting starts or is about to end.

Prepare for the hard questions. What it would cost, who opposes it, what officials will say, and why it hasn’t been fixed already. Have straight answers.

Agree roles, and keep the group small. Two or three people is enough. Decide who opens, who makes the request, who explains the detail and who takes notes. If you can, bring someone who lives or works in the constituency.

A model meeting brief

Write a one-page brief for everyone attending from your side. It’s for your team, not the MP. Our guide to writing a briefing note covers the form. Here is one for a fictional food manufacturer meeting its MP about delays in export health certificates:

• Meeting: the MP, at their constituency office, Friday at 10 am, for 30 minutes. With us: our head of public affairs, the plant manager, and a shift supervisor who lives in the constituency.
• Request: that the MP write to the Defra minister responsible for food exports about certification delays.
• About them: second-term MP who sits on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. Spoke about rural jobs in their maiden speech, and twice since February.
• Our history: met our chief executive last year. We promised local hiring figures and didn’t send them, so bring them.
• Key messages: the plant employs 240 people in the constituency; certification delays held up 14 export shipments this year; a published service standard for certificates would fix most of it.
• Likely questions: have you raised it with the department? (Yes, twice since March, without change.) What would it cost? (Nothing new: a standard for an existing process.)
• What we can offer: a tour of the plant, and our hiring figures for the constituency.
• Roles: the head of public affairs opens and makes the request; the plant manager explains the delays; the supervisor describes the lost shifts.
• Success looks like: the MP agrees to write to the minister by the end of the month.

A model agenda for 30 minutes

Send a short agenda with your request, or a few days before the meeting. For a minister, it tells the private office which officials to bring.

The leave-behind

Bring one page to leave with them, and email it to the office afterwards. Staff will file it and the MP may read it later, so it has to stand on its own.

• The request, at the top.
• The issue, in two or three sentences.
• What it means locally: your people, sites, customers or members in the constituency, with one or two figures.
• What you propose, and what it would cost government, if anything.
• A contact: a name, a phone number and an email address.

In the room

Arrive early and stay flexible. Meetings start late, get shortened and move at short notice. Take it in good humour.

Make the request early. Put it on the table in the first few minutes, so it’s there even if the meeting is cut short.

Listen. Ask what they’re hearing about the issue, what would help them act, and who else you should talk to. You’ll learn where they stand and what they need.

Be straight. If you don’t know an answer, say so and offer to follow up. Don’t overstate your support or your numbers.

Keep it non-partisan. Don’t criticise other members or parties. You’ll need them too.

Treat every seat as marginal. MPs in safe seats don’t like to be reminded of it. Many have worked hard to win their constituents’ confidence and, with it, their majority. Never suggest to an MP or candidate that their seat is safe.

Treat staff as you would the MP. The caseworker, researcher or official in the room will often handle what happens next.

Ask before taking photos. If the MP agrees to one, send it to their office afterwards, and don’t post it without their agreement. On the parliamentary estate, photography is restricted, so check with your host first.

Close on the next step. Before you leave, confirm what’s been agreed, who will follow up and by when.

Meeting a minister

A meeting with a minister works the same way, with a few differences.

Bring your most senior person. A minister’s office expects your chief executive or chair; a request led by a policy adviser alone is easier to decline.

Speak to the decision. Say what you’re asking the minister to decide, by when, and why it’s good for the government and the department, not only for you. If you’ve already been to officials, say so, and what happened.

Expect officials in the room. Under the Ministerial Code, a private secretary or official should be present for all discussions of government business. The private office will ask officials for advice on your request before you arrive, the official in the room takes a note, and the team that covers your issue will usually handle the follow-up.

Give a new minister more context. After an election or a reshuffle, keep the case short, explain the background and don’t assume they know your history.

Your meeting will be published. Each department publishes its ministers’ meetings with outside organisations every quarter on GOV.UK, with the purpose of each. Describe the purpose in your request as you’d be happy to see it in print.

If you lobby for clients, register first. Under the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, a VAT-registered business that lobbies ministers or permanent secretaries, in person or in writing, on behalf of paying clients must be on the Register of Consultant Lobbyists before it does so, and must declare its clients every quarter.

In-house teams don’t register at Westminster. The Act covers only consultant lobbying: employees lobbying for their own organisation are outside it, and so is lobbying MPs who aren’t ministers, special advisers or officials below permanent secretary. Some in-house teams join the industry bodies’ voluntary registers instead.

Scotland includes in-house teams. Under the Lobbying (Scotland) Act 2016, paid face-to-face lobbying of MSPs, Scottish ministers, special advisers or the Permanent Secretary, video calls included, must be recorded on Scotland’s Lobbying Register, whether you lobby for clients or for your own organisation. There are exemptions, among them meeting the MSPs for the area where your organisation works (unless they’re ministers) and some organisations with fewer than ten full-time staff.

During an election

Know the pre-election period. When Parliament is dissolved for a general election, 25 working days before polling day, every seat in the Commons falls vacant: until the result there are no MPs, only candidates, so don’t write “MP” after their names. Ministers stay in charge of their departments but, by convention, avoid new action of a continuing or long-term character, and decisions an incoming government might take differently wait until after the election (the Cabinet Office’s guidance for civil servants). Don’t expect ministers to make major changes until it’s over. The devolved governments follow similar conventions before their own elections.

Candidates are accessible. Most publish contact details on their campaign websites, and many are glad to meet local employers. Candidates from the main parties with little chance in a seat are still worth talking to: they often go on to become special advisers, or MPs themselves.

Offer a place to visit. During a campaign, party leaders, frontbenchers and candidates look for places to visit. Offering a site visit, or introductions to your employees or clients, can mean a lot to a candidate and their campaign team. Make the same offer to each of the main candidates, so a visit isn’t read as an endorsement. You could say, in a letter or on the phone:

“We would be glad to host a tour of our [site] in [constituency] for you or a visiting frontbencher, and can arrange it at short notice.”

After the meeting

Debrief the same day. Agree as a team what you learned, what changes in your plan, and who owns each next step.

Follow up in writing within a day or two. Thank the MP and their office, restate what was agreed and send anything you promised.

Record who attended and what was said, so a colleague can pick up the thread. Keep it somewhere the whole team can see, not in one person’s inbox, and give each follow-up an owner and a due date. GovConnex logs a meeting when you BCC your logging address on the follow-up email. Our public affairs CRM guide covers what to record, and what not to.

Do what you said you would, on time. If you promised figures by Friday, send them by Friday.

Watch for what happens next. If the MP agreed to write to a minister, table a question or raise your issue in a debate, look for it, ask their office to share the minister’s reply, and thank them when it happens.

A model follow-up email, from the meeting above:

Subject: Thank you for meeting us: export certification delays

Dear [Mr or Ms Surname],

Thank you for meeting us on Friday, and please pass on our thanks to [staff member’s name] for arranging it. We appreciated the chance to explain how certification delays are affecting the plant and the 240 people who work there.

As promised, I’ve attached our hiring figures for the constituency and the one-page summary we left with you. Thank you also for offering to write to the minister about a service standard for export health certificates. We’d be glad to provide anything that would help.

If your office needs anything further, I’m on [phone number].

Yours sincerely,
[Your name]
[Role, organisation]

Keep in touch before you need them

If an MP’s staff have seen letters from you, or you have met the MP before, you are far more likely to get a meeting when a regulatory change makes it urgent. Engagement with MPs and their staff over years, not weeks, is what gets results.

• Send them something useful: figures for their constituency, an invitation to see a new site, or notice of an announcement that will affect their community.
• Know their staff: the caseworker or researcher who handles what you raise, and for a minister, the special adviser.
• Keep them up to date: if something you discussed changes, tell their office before they hear it elsewhere.
• Don’t only call with a problem. A relationship built only on requests wears thin.

Common questions

How do you address an MP, minister or peer? In person, address the Prime Minister as “Prime Minister”, a Secretary of State as “Secretary of State”, another minister as “Minister”, an MP as “Mr Smith” or “Ms Smith”, and a peer as “Lord Smith” or “Lady Smith”. Use a first name only once they invite you to. In writing, put “MP” after an MP’s name, and “The Rt Hon” before it if they’re a Privy Counsellor, as current and former Cabinet ministers are: a letter to “The Rt Hon Jane Smith MP” opens “Dear Ms Smith”. Parliament sets out how to address members of the Lords: “Dear Lord Smith”, or “Dear Lady Smith” for a baroness. Members of the devolved parliaments take MSP, MS or MLA after their names.

How do I find out who my MP is? Search your postcode on Parliament’s Find your MP. In Scotland you also have a constituency MSP and seven regional MSPs; in Wales, six Members of the Senedd for your constituency; and in Northern Ireland, five MLAs. Peers have no constituency, so look for those with an interest in your issue: their speeches, committees and registered interests show who.

How long does a meeting with an MP last? Usually 15 to 30 minutes, and sometimes less if the diary changes or the division bell rings. Ask for 30 minutes and plan to make your case in 15.

How far in advance should I ask for a meeting? A few weeks for an MP, and longer for a minister. Check the recess dates first: an MP is often easier to see in their constituency on a Friday or during a recess.

Do I need to register as a lobbyist to meet an MP? Not at Westminster, unless you lobby ministers or permanent secretaries on behalf of paying clients, in which case you must be on the Register of Consultant Lobbyists first. In-house teams lobbying for their own organisation don’t register there. In Scotland, paid face-to-face lobbying of MSPs and Scottish ministers must be recorded on the Lobbying Register, in-house teams included, with some exemptions.

Can I invite an MP or minister to an event or site visit? Yes. Send a written invitation as early as you can, to the MP’s office or, for a minister, to the department, with the date, time and place, what you’d like them to do (tour, speak or open something), who else is attending and whether media will be there. Ministers’ diaries fill weeks ahead, so a short-notice invitation is often declined.

What should I bring to a meeting with an MP? A one-page leave-behind with your request, the local facts and a contact; any figures you promised; business cards; and photo ID if you’re meeting at Westminster. Leave the annual report and the gifts at home.