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Sir Keir Starmer plans to bestow peerages on his former chief of staff, Sue Gray, as well as former MPs who have stepped down from safe Labor seats ahead of the UK general election to make way for new party talent.
Labor officials said Starmer’s “political” list of party peers was long and would include Gray, who resigned in October after criticism of its performance and a period of internal strife at the heart of the government.
Gray was a senior civil servant who left Whitehall to join Starmer’s team in opposition. Morgan McSweeney replaced her as the new prime minister’s chief of staff after only three months.
Several party figures said the list also included former Labor MPs who stood down shortly before the July 4 election, helping party bosses to introduce favored candidates as replacements.
They said it included former MPs Lyn Brown, Kevin Brennan and Julie Elliott. Thangam Debbonaire, who was in Starmer’s shadow cabinet but lost her Bristol West seat to the Green Party in the election, was also there, they said.
Number 10 declined to comment.
One senior Labor figure defended the practice of giving peerages to party veterans who were “proven workhorses in parliament” rather than academics or leading business people.
They said political outsiders have a patchy record because they often don’t understand the practical business of being in the House of Lords.
“I wouldn’t see this as some kind of payoff. We like to give them to ex-MPs, ex-party and union workers because they understand the work involved in that role,” said the person.
The Prime Minister has already graced a number of veteran ex-Labour MPs who have stepped down this year: former Labor Speaker Lord John Cryer, plus ex-New Labour-era defense ministers Lord John Spellar and Kevan Jones, who holds the title Lord Beamish.
Starmer is ditching 92 hereditary peers to try to reduce the size of the Lords, which he described as too “massive” with more than 800 members.
The government is likely to try to justify the creation of more peers by pointing out that Labor has only a relatively small presence in the upper house compared to its huge elected majority in the lower house.
Labor has just 187 peers compared to 273 Tories, 78 Liberal Democrats and 184 MPs who are not affiliated to any party.
Former Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has yet to submit a list of proposed resignations, current government officials said.
Former UK Prime Ministers are usually entitled to a final list of enhancements after leaving office. Officials warned that unless Sunak submitted his list almost immediately, it was unlikely that his proposed peers could be vetted in time to be announced by the end of this year.
Tory party members believe former ministers Michael Gove, Simon Hart and Alister Jack will be on Sunak’s list, along with party executive chairman Stephen Massey. Gove and Jack declined to comment. Hart said he was unaware of the proposal. Massey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some in the Tory party believe Sunak plans to break with the tradition of gentrifying big party donors, a move likely to win praise from anti-corruption campaigners.
The prospect has fueled fears among some Tories that it could have a chilling effect on future donations at a time when the Conservatives are cash-strapped.
An ally of Sunak said: “There has been a lot of speculation, most of it wrong. But we will not go into the comments of this process.”
Sunak has already elevated his former chief of staff Liam Booth-Smith to the Lords in the dissolution honors roll that marked the end of the last parliament in July.
Discussions are underway within the government over Starmer’s push to release its latest list of Labor Party appointments alongside the New Year’s honors list, which the government says will “recognise the achievements and service of outstanding people across the UK”.
While there is precedent for releasing lists simultaneously, including last December when Liz Truss’ resignation peerings and honors lists were published at the same time, some government figures worried it would risk upsetting Buckingham Palace. All honors are issued in the name of the king.
Government officials said the Liberal Democrats would be offered several peer nominations after winning a record number of MPs in the general election. The party received one nomination for dissolution honors in July, its first in almost a decade.
