[citation needed] Belstead showed little interest in politics at first, and waited six years after succeeding to the peerage on his father's death in 1958 before making his maiden speech.

In 1970, Edward Heath appointed him to become Parliamentary Under-Secretary to Margaret Thatcher at the Department of Education and Science; he was moved in the same rank to the Northern Ireland Office three years later.

He was then made Minister at the Foreign Office when Lord Carrington and his team resigned after the Falklands invasion.

In 1980, he was interviewed by the BBC's Panorama current affairs program about Britain's preparations for a nuclear attack.

[1] After losing his Cabinet seat, which he had gained when he became Lord Privy Seal, in 1990 he became Paymaster General and Northern Ireland Minister under John Major, retiring from the Government to become Chairman of the Parole Board in 1992.