Trevor Phillips

Trevor Phillips, OBE (born 31 December 1953, London), chairs the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and is a former television executive and presenter. He became head of the Commission for Racial Equality in 2003, and on its abolition in 2006 was appointed full-time chair of its successor, the EHRC (initially called the Commission for Equality and Human Rights), which had a broader remit of combating discrimination and promoting equality across other grounds (age, disability, gender, race, religion and belief, sexual orientation and gender reassignment). The EHRC also had the role of promoting and defending human rights, and secured recognition as the national human rights institution for Great Britain (alongside separate commissions in Northern Ireland and Scotland). Phillips' tenure as EHRC chair (which at his request became a part-time position in 2009) has at times been controversial.