Also the benches in the House of Commons are required to be the length of two swords held extended at minimum apart - to stop the Honourable Members stabbing each other in the heat of debate.
Well, no one makes laws/rules about flying to the moon with brown paper bags for wings, so there must have been at least one incident where keeping the Honourable Members apart was important.

There is some real fascinating shit buried under layers of creaky old historic bureaucracy. I totally dig it.

The top hat survives in Australia as a piece of paper over one's head in Parliament... though I'm not sure if anyone still does it. :D