Maude was first elected to the House of Commons to represent the constituency of North Warwickshire in the Conservative Party's landslide victory at the 1983 general election. In 1984, he became the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Employment Peter Morrison. Maude then became an assistant government whip (1985–87) and Minister for Corporate and Consumer Affairs (1987–89), then part of the DTI. A Thatcherite, Maude was appointed in 1989 the Minister for Europe in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to spearhead the policy outlined in the Bruges Speech, attacking the Delors Plan in order to exclude Britain from an economic and political Union of Europe. In 1992 he acted as deputy for Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont and was one of the two UK signatories to the Maastricht Treaty.