Member of committee that awarded Lord Ashcroft peerage to give evidence

A member of the Lords committee that awarded Lord Ashcroft a peerage in 2000 is to appear before an inquiry by MPs to give the only first-hand account of the mystery still surrounding his ennoblement. Lady Dean will appear alongside Sir Hayden Phillips, the senior civil servant who agreed to downgrade the undertaking Ashcroft gave to become a "long-term resident" instead of a permanent resident, allowing him to retain his non-dom status. But Ashcroft and the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, have so far refused to say whether they will attend. The four have been invited to give evidence to the public administration select committee (PASC) on Thursday, the same day that the subcommittee on Lords' interests will consider a complaint from the Labour MP Martin Linton that Ashcroft breached the code of conduct governing the behaviour of peers. The two inquiries are the first official investigations into the row after Ashcroft revealed three weeks ago that he has remained a non-dom since he entered the House of Lords in 2000. Most people – including his close friend and colleague Hague – had understood the undertaking he gave to become a permanent resident as a condition of his ennoblement would including paying full tax on his substantial earnings abroad. The revelation caused a split within the shadow cabinet after it emerged that Hague only found out a few months ago that Ashcroft had retained his non-dom tax status and he in turn only told David Cameron last month. The PASC inquiry has itself been hit by controversy after the three Conservative members of the committee walked out – some permanently – claiming the process had been hijacked for party-political reasons to highlight the Ashcroft affair. Dean was one of three members of the Lords scrutiny committee that agreed Ashcroft's peerage in 2000 – despite two previous failed attempts. Lord Thomson of Monifieth chaired the committee. He died in 2008. His wife has said that he understood that by agreeing to become a permanent resident Ashcroft would pay tax. The third was Lord Hurd, the Tory peer, who has turned down an invitation to give evidence. Dean's evidence should shine light on the committee's precise understanding of the promise Ashcroft made to become a permanent resident when he was ennobled, and give a verdict on how he renegotiated it apparently without their knowledge. Phillips has previously said that his agreement to the changed conditions for Ashcroft's peerage were simply "crossing the Ts and dotting the Is", and says he was not aware of the implications. He said: "The job I then had was one of authorising the writs that are sent out to new peers. I needed to check that the conditions I had read about that he [Ashcroft] had accepted were to be acceptable. "I wanted to ask the authorities concerned and, if I recollect correctly, the political honours scrutiny committee, whether they were satisfied that whatever he had consented to was going to happen. My recollection was that it was all right." A spokesman for Ashcroft would not confirm whether the peer would accept PASC's invitation for Thursday saying only that he was writing to respond to them. But he will not appear at the Lords committee, a spokesman for the upper house said. A spokesman for Hague said: "It is being considered but of course we've noted Conservative members are not taking part in these proceedings." The subcommittee on Lords' interests, chaired by Lady Manningham-Buller, the ex-director general of MI5, will also meet on Thursday to consider Linton's complaint that Ashcroft broke the Lords' code of conduct that dictates that members should "always act on their honour" when he renegotiated the deal without the committee knowing and when he failed to reveal the changes to Hague.