Liz Truss has rewarded Brexiteers and those personally loyal to her with peerages and other awards in her long-awaited resignation honours list.
The former prime minister was reported to have nominated 14 people – one for every three-and-a-half days of her stay in Number 10 – but only 11 were approved by the appointments commissioners.
Matthew Elliott, the former chief executive of Vote Leave, and Jon Moynihan, the organisation’s former chairman, both receive life peerages in the resignation honours list, which was submitted by Ms Truss in March.
Her list, which is brief compared with the 45 people honoured by Boris Johnson when he left Downing Street, includes a peerage for Ruth Porter, who was Ms Truss’s deputy chief of staff during her 49-day tenure as premier.
But the House of Lords appointments commission appears to have blocked a peerage for Mark Littlewood, the outgoing head of the Institute for Economic Affairs, a think-tank that had supported her ill-fated mini budget last autumn. Mr Littlewood was reported to have been nominated for a peerage but his name did not make the final list.
Ms Truss’s close friend Jackie Doyle-Price, the MP for Thurrock who was minister of state for industry for six weeks during the Truss premiership, is made a dame, as is the novelist Shirley Conran, who is recognised by Ms Truss for founding the non-profit Maths Anxiety Trust.
Alec Shelbrooke MP, another Truss loyalist who served briefly as a junior defence minister under her, is knighted, while her former special advisers Sophie Jarvis and Shabbir Merali are given CBEs and her former parliamentary private secretaries Robert Butler MP and Suzanne Webb MP receive OBEs. Ms Truss’s Conservative Association chairman in her South West Norfolk constituency, David Hills, received an MBE.
Ms Truss said she was “delighted these champions for the conservative causes of freedom, limited government and a proud and sovereign Britain have been suitably honoured”.
Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow cabinet office minister, said Ms Truss’s resignation honours list was “proof positive of Rishi Sunak’s weakness” because he had “nodded through these tarnished gongs” which he described as rewards for Conservative failures.
A Government source replied: “Every past Labour prime minister has issued a Dissolution or Resignation List.
“The convention is that the incumbent Prime Minister does not block the political peerage proposals of others – be it those from past prime ministers, or dubious Labour Party leader nominations of Tom Watson and Shami Chakrabarti.”
Separately, Sajid Javid, the former chancellor, has been knighted in the New Year Honours, which are conferred by the King on the recommendation of the current prime minister, Mr Sunak.
The resignation of Sir Sajid, quickly followed by that of Mr Sunak, brought about the end of Mr Johnson’s premiership and ultimately paved the way for Mr Sunak to enter Number 10.
Sir Sajid, who is standing down at the next general election, has been knighted on Mr Sunak’s recommendation after holding six Cabinet roles including home secretary and chancellor and becoming the first British Asian to hold one of the great offices of state.
First female foreign secretary
Labour’s Dame Margaret Beckett, who is standing down at the next election after 40 years representing Derby South, during which she served as the first female foreign secretary, will become a Dame Grand Cross after being made a Dame Commander in 2013.
Siobhain McDonagh, a Labour stalwart who has been an MP since 1997, becomes a dame. Her sister Margaret McDonagh, who died earlier this year, was Labour’s first female general secretary.
Ms McDonagh said being notified of the honour was a “bit of a surprise” and she thought her late sister would have “been proud of kind of the work that I have done over the last 26 years as MP for Mitcham and Morden… the place we were born and brought up in”.
Makerfield MP Yvonne Fovargue, who sits on the privileges and the standards committees, receives a CBE while her Labour colleague, Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees has been made an OBE.
Conservative backbencher Mark Garnier, who represents Wyre Forest, has also been made an OBE, as has Erewash MP Maggie Throup, who served as vaccines minister between 2021 and 2022.
