Number 10 has announced the thirty people upon whom the Queen is bestowing peerages this summer. The Conservative Party gets 14 new peers, Labour gets five, the Liberal Democrats get ten, and the Green Party gets one. London Assembly member Jenny Jones will become the first Green peer since Timothy Beaumont died in 2008, and is the first to be awarded her peerage as a working member of the Green party.
Amongst the Conservative peers are Danny Finkelstein, the Times‘ associate editor; former MPs Matthew Carrington and John Horam; Paralympian Chris Holmes; and Lucy Neville-Rolfe, a former executive at Tesco. Anthony Bamford, the managing director of JCB who has personally donated around £100,000 to the party, and overseen more donations from his company, is also given a peerage. With these 14 members, the Conservative party overtakes Labour to become the biggest party in the Lords, with 222 members to Labour’s 221.
The Lib Dem peers include former New Statesman blogger Olly Grender, former London Mayoral candidate Brian Paddick, the co-founder of Ministry of Sound James Palumbo, and former MP and treasurer of the party Ian Wrigglesworth.
The five Labour peers are Charles Allen, a non-executive director of LOCOG; Scottish fridge magnate William Haughey; Alicia Kennedy, the former deputy general secretary of the party; Doreen Lawrence, a campaigner for racial equality and lobbyist Jon Mendelsohn.
No cross-bench peerages were awarded. Already, UKIP is kicking up a fuss about not being included on the list, releasing a statement saying that “this is the establishment rewarding the establishment for being the establishment.”
The full list of peerages is as follows:
Conservative Party
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- Richard Balfe – former MEP and Conservative Party Envoy to the Trade Unions and Cooperative movement
- Sir Anthony Bamford DL – Chairman and Managing Director of JCB
- Nicholas Bourne – former Leader of the Conservative Group in the National Assembly for Wales
- Matthew Carrington – former Conservative MP
- Daniel Finkelstein OBE – Associate Editor of The Times and former Head of Policy for the Conservative Party
- Annabel Goldie DL MSP – Conservative Member of the Scottish Parliament; former Leader of the Scottish Conservatives
- Lady (Fiona) Hodgson CBE – campaigner on women’s issues; senior member of the Conservative voluntary Party; former Chairman of the Conservative Women’s Organisation
- Christopher (Chris) Holmes MBE – former Paralympic swimmer; Director of Paralympic Integration at London 2012; Non-Executive Director of the Equality and Human Rights Commission; and a former Non-Executive Director of the Disability Rights Commission
- John Horam – former MP; Conservative representative on the Electoral Commission
- Howard Leigh – senior corporate finance professional; Conservative Party Treasurer. Former Chairman and current President of Westminster Synagogue; former Trustee of Jewish Care and current Chairman of Jewish Care’s Business Group; Trustee of the Jerusalem Foundation in the UK.
- Dame Lucy Neville-Rolfe CMG – former senior civil servant, including No10 Policy Unit; former leading Executive at Tesco Plc
- Sir Stephen Sherbourne – longstanding political career in Westminster and public affairs, including former Political Secretary to the then Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher), and former Chief of Staff to the then Leader of the Opposition (Michael Howard)
- Michael (Mike) Whitby – Conservative Councillor in Birmingham; former Leader of Birmingham City Council
- Susan Williams – former Councillor and Leader of Trafford Council
Green Party
- Jenny Jones AM – member of the London Assembly; former Chair of the Green Party of England and Wales and former Deputy Mayor of London
Labour Party
- Sir Charles Allen CBE – Non-Executive Director of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games; Chairman of Global Radio Group
- Sir William Haughey OBE – prominent Scottish businessman and CEO of City Refrigeration Holdings
- Alicia Kennedy – former Deputy General Secretary of the Labour Party
- Doreen Lawrence OBE – campaigner for justice, race equality and better policing
- Jonathan (Jon) Mendelsohn – business advisor and co-founder of LLM Communications
Liberal Democrat Party
- Catherine (Cathy) Mary Bakewell MBE – former leader of Somerset County Council
- Rosalind (Olly) Grender MBE – former Director of Communications for Shelter; former Director of Communications for the Liberal Democrats
- Christine Mary Humphreys – President of the Welsh Liberal Democrats; former Member of the National Assembly for Wales
- Zahida Manzoor CBE – former Legal Services Ombudsman; former Deputy Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality
- Brian Paddick – former Deputy Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police Service
- James Palumbo – co-founder and chairman of Ministry of Sound Group, the international music and entertainment business
- Jeremy Purvis – former Member of the Scottish Parliament for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale
- Alison Suttie – former Press Secretary to the President of the European Parliament; former Deputy Chief of Staff to Nick Clegg and Election Manager for the 2010 General Election
- Rumi Verjee CBE – entrepreneur and philanthropist
- Sir Ian Wrigglesworth – Liberal Democrat Treasurer; former MP for Teeside Thornaby and for Stockton South
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