Constitution Committee
15 July 2026
Speaker dots
- Speakers in the chapter
- Colour: political group
- Grey: no group
Tap or click a chapter's dots to see names and groups.
Contents updated on 15 Jul 2026
Legend
Transcript markers
- text Sentence being played
- text Search result
- text Intervention cited by the link you opened
Click a sentence to play the video from that moment. Select text to quote it with the speaker, timestamp and link.
More options
Official source
Offset
Transcript offset
0s
Text size
Export
Live capture
Versions of this video
Transcripts may differ slightly from one version to another.
Constitution Committee Actual start House of Lords
19:46 - 21:41
Speaker 1
Welcome to this meeting of the House of Lords Constitution Committee.
Today we're holding the first evidence session of the committee's new inquiry, which will look at the role of the UK's constitutional protectors and experts. We're delighted to be joined today by Lord Sedwill, former Cabinet Secretary, Head of the Civil Service, and National Security Advisor. Lord Sedwill, welcome back to the committee. You are very welcome. I remind all members to declare any interests relevant to this inquiry or today's meeting the first time they speak.
I have no relevant interests of my own to declare. We are looking at this subject.
I mean, we haven't actually launched our inquiry and we're slightly toying with the idea exactly which direction it goes in and what it is that we're looking at. We started off thinking about the threats to the constitution, and we may well come back to that, but also who carries responsibility for advising, for knowledge, where they get that knowledge from, who are the people who best support our idea of a constitutional government and how it all hangs together. So that is in essence what it is that we're looking for. And on that theme, we'll start off right into it. Who would you identify as those people who are the principal constitutional, some might call guardians, in the UK's political system?
The rest of the transcript is for Pro customers
Unlock the full transcript, chat, and every analysis feature with Polyfact Pro.
The video itself stays free to watch, in full, no account needed.
Ask anything about this video — I analyse its transcript to answer.