Despatch box

Despatch boxes of a different design and generally made of wood are used as lecterns from which frontbench members of parliament delivered speeches to their parliamentary chamber.

By tradition, the modern despatch boxes often contain the religious texts used for swearing in new members of the respective chamber.

According to the government, Ministers are permitted to use ordinary lockable briefcases to transport information which has been classified 'confidential' or below.

The Opposition box contains a Bible, which was resting on the centre table when a German bomb fell on the Commons chamber on 10 May 1941, in the Second World War; it was subsequently recovered largely intact.

[citation needed] More recently, the Government despatch box is reported to have sustained damage at the hands of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.