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Privileges and Conduct

My Lords, this report has been made further to the Motion agreed by the House on 25 February of this year that referred certain allegations against Mr Trevor Phillips to the Committee for Privileges, as it then was. The committee, on the advice of the noble and learned Lords, Lord Irvine of Lairg, Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Lord Scott of Foscote, concluded that Mr Phillips was not guilty of contempt of the House. I hope that the committee’s findings speak for themselves and I shall say no more about them at this point. The committee has also made two substantive recommendations, to which I seek the agreement of your Lordships. The first is that the guidance issued to witnesses appearing before House of Lords Select Committees should in future state explicitly that any contact between witnesses and the committees should be made through the clerk or the chairman. We hope that this will provide greater clarity for witnesses. Our second recommendation is that the Procedure Committee should be invited to consider the procedure to be followed in a case where a committee intends to make personal criticisms of a named individual other than a Minister. We accept that more work is needed before any changes are made to the House’s procedure, but we felt on principle that the issue should be looked at. I beg to move.