 Evans also served as a governor of the British Film Institute and in 1999 was appointed the first chairman of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.In the 1998 Birthday Honours he was appointed as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), and on 11 May 2000 was created a life peer as Baron Evans of Temple Guiting, of Temple Guiting in the County of Gloucestershire.In the House of Lords, he was a government whip from 2002 to 2007, and a spokesman for the Department for Constitutional Affairs from 2003.