I beg to move,

That the Seventh Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights (House of Commons Paper No. 371) be referred to the Committee on Standards and Privileges.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights met on 9 February to discuss a draft report on the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It emerged at the start of the meeting that Trevor Phillips, the chair of the EHRC, had recently spoken to at least three members of the Committee about its consideration of the draft report and the publication of written evidence with the report. In our view, these discussions could constitute a contempt of both Houses in that they may have been an attempt to influence the views of certain members of the Committee shortly before it considered a draft report directly relevant to Mr. Phillips in his role as chair of the commission. We therefore recommended that the matter should be subject to investigation by the privileges Committees of both Houses, and so I ask the House to refer the matter in accordance with my motion.

I am a recently appointed member of the Committee that has referred this matter to the House for referral to the Committee on Standards and Privileges. As the subject of one of the telephone calls referred to by the Chairman of the Committee and—as far as I am aware—the only Member of this House who received such a telephone call, I felt that I should make my view on this matter clear. It is right that I tell the House that I do not believe that Mr. Phillips has acted in contempt. He wanted to discuss whether the proposed report would be fair because he believed—rightly, as it turned out—that parts of the evidence that the Committee received would be redacted in the final report. I do not know how he knew this, and I did not ask him how he knew this.

The point of privilege is to ensure that Members of Parliament are free to say what they wish, and I wish to assure the House that there was nothing improper in the call or any attempt to interfere with my ability to say what I wished.

Trevor raised two other issues—

Trevor?

Yes, I used his first name. That is usual when having a conversation with someone. For example, were I talking to the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), I would not call him the hon. Member for something, and nor would I call him by his surname—I would call him George. [Hon. Members: “Sir George!”] I would actually call him George, not Sir George.

I raise this point, because I am concerned about the lack of fair process in how the Committee’s inquiry was conducted. I was shocked, as a newly appointed Committee member, to discover that this inquiry—the Select Committee’s first inquiry into the work of the EHRC since its inception—had no terms of reference. Its only call for evidence was a notice reporting evidence from a group of commissioners who had resigned and inviting short statements in advance of evidence from Trevor Phillips as chair of the organisation. I was able to attend only one evidence session, and I must say that it was more like a show trial of an individual than an inquiry into the work of an organisation.

I was not surprised, therefore, to receive a note from Trevor Phillips, following our telephone call, suggesting that if, as he feared, the report contained inaccuracies and unfair criticism, he would be within his rights to ask that the allegations be made without the cloak of parliamentary privilege. I think that he is right, although, given that the final report has not been drafted, I do not know whether it will be either unfair or inaccurate, and I will do my best, as a member of the Committee, to ensure that neither is the case. I believe, however, that the Standards and Privileges Committee should, as well as considering the report of the allegation of contempt by Trevor Phillips, also ask to see how the Joint Committee on Human Rights worked and consider carefully whether it operated in a way that was proper.

I know that I am not the only Member of the House to feel that the claim of privilege by Members who have behaved in an apparently criminal fashion in relation to their expenses is abusive—

Order. I say gently to the hon. Lady that we must not go down that route, and it would help our proceedings were she to withdraw her last sentence. She can then get on to—or back to—the terrain where she and the House were very safe.

I certainly do so, Mr. Speaker.

The overuse of the concept of privilege risks undermining it as an important concept providing a vital freedom for Members of Parliament to say what they need without interference from the courts. If we are to preserve this vital concept, we need to use it well and sparingly, as was advised by the 1966 Select Committee on privileges. To imply that Members of Parliament might be inhibited in their work by a telephone call by someone whose career might be put at stake by a report that they are considering is, in my view, a misuse of this valuable concept.

I shall not detain the House for long, but this debate raises an important issue. I do not wish to trespass on the investigations to follow shortly from the Standards and Privileges Committee, and I believe that the whole House is in your debt, Sir, for giving this business priority today. The issue of privilege is tremendously important for every Member of the House.

I am glad that the Leader of the House is here—her presence is one of the reasons that I have risen to speak. In 1997, knowing that the issue needed contemporary examination, the Government very wisely set up a Joint Committee of both Houses, presided over by a Law Lord. I had the great good fortune to be asked to sit on the Committee, and a former Leader of the House—now Baroness Taylor—also sat on it. We went into the whole area of privilege in great detail, taking evidence from witnesses not only from this country but from abroad.

We deliberated long and carefully, and we produced a unanimous report that was widely welcomed both inside and outside the House. Again without wishing to trespass on any current issue or possible current issue, let me say that it was important to establish whether we should retain the whole idea of privilege. Our Committee was unanimous that we should retain it, as a vital protection for each and every one of us, and at any time. Having reported to the House and received a favourable response from the Dispatch Box, we hoped very much that our recommendation that there should be legislation on the law of privilege would be accepted and that a proper statute would be laid before the House before too long.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the overwhelming majority of Members use that privilege responsibly? There is a vanishingly small number of occasions on which that privilege has been abused, either for personal interest, or on the basis of vendetta or gossip.

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Our Committee indeed felt that, on the whole, privilege had been used properly, as it should have been. Nevertheless, we thought that something going back over 300 years deserved a new statute, and we recommended this. The Government responded perfectly favourably. The Opposition also responded favourably, but since then nothing has happened. The report is on the shelves gathering dust. As this Parliament ebbs towards its close, I hope that whoever is the Leader of the House after 6 May or whenever—that is, whoever is in the driving seat as far as Government business is concerned—will persuade the Prime Minister of the day that such legislation deserves priority in the new Parliament.

I shall leave it at that, Mr. Speaker. You have helped us today by giving us the opportunity to have this brief debate, from which I hope will flow a speedy investigation by the Committee to which the matter has been referred. However, I also hope that the wider issue of privilege will not be forgotten, and that we shall have a pledge in the first Queen’s Speech of the new Parliament to legislate on the matter.

I intervene very briefly in this debate to echo the remarks that my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) has just made. There is one thing that worries me about the process, because I can think of nothing more damaging to the reputation of an individual than to have a paper laid before this House with the words “Allegation of Contempt” on it.

I take privilege very seriously, but like many Members I am not sure what it is about, what its ramifications or wider reaches are, or how it impacts on witnesses or those who take part in Select Committee proceedings. I am nervous about this case, in that there is no notification to witnesses or participants who come forward to assist a Committee in its deliberations that they might be at risk of offending against the privilege of the House by taking the actions that, in this case, Mr. Phillips took. That is my caveat about this case. We are talking about a very censorious process, if the participant or the affected witness is unaware of what privilege amounts to in such cases.

The Question is as on the Order Paper. As many as are of that opinion say Aye—[Interruption.] As many as are of that opinion say Aye, to the contrary No.

Question agreed to.

Sorry, the reason for the hesitation was that I had the distinct impression that the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who has already made his case, was seeking to say something further. He might have been doing so, but I am not aware that there is provision for such; in fact, I was fairly convinced that there was not, and I am reinforced in that conviction by those who know. I therefore hope that the House will rest content.

rose—

The hon. Gentleman is never to be silenced.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to respond to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), by simply pointing out that she was a very new member of the Committee and had not participated in most of the inquiry. Her views might therefore have been somewhat clouded by the fact that she had not heard most of the evidence at first hand, as we had.

The hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member—to be precise, we came into the House together in May 1997—and he is therefore very well aware that that does not constitute a point of order. However, it was an interesting point of debate and he has registered his views firmly on the record.