Labour appoints 30 new peers including Sue Gray

The government has appointed 30 new Labour peers including a string of ex-MPs and Sir Keir Starmer loyalists.

The prime minister’s former chief of staff Sue Gray has also been handed a seat in the House of Lords, confirming reports earlier in the week.

It comes only two months after she left her role as the prime minister’s chief of staff, amid internal rows over her influence.

The Conservatives appointed six new peers including former deputy prime minister Therese Coffey and Toby Young, the associate editor of The Spectator and son of former Labour peer Lord Michael Young. The Lib Dems have appointed two peers.

The list of new peers contains 18 men and 20 women.

A series of Labour MPs who lost their seats or stood down at the last election will now join the House of Lords – including Thangam Debbonaire, Julie Elliot, Lyn Brown and Steve McCabe.

Luciana Berger and Phil Wilson, two Labour MPs who lost their seat at the 2019 election are to become peers, as is Margaret Curran who lost her Glasgow East seat in 2015.

Berger left Labour in 2019 due to concerns about antisemitism under then leader Jeremy Corbyn and stood unsuccessfully as a Lib Dem candidate. She rejoined Labour in 2023 after being invited back by Sir Keir.

Mike Katz, the national chairman of Jewish Labour Movement – appointed to the Lords as Labour peer, said he would use his new position to continue to fight the “toxic racism” of antisemitism.

Katz said: “I passionately believe in this government’s commitment to creating a fairer, more prosperous society, and its determination to build the homes and the infrastructure that our country needs and our people deserve.”

The peers will now be entitled to a tax-free £361 daily allowance – plus travel expenses – when they attend Parliament.

Last month, Gray had decided not to take up a post as the prime minister’s envoy to the nations and regions that she was offered after departing as Sir Keir’s chief of staff.

Gray maintains it was her decision to leave the job, but her exit came following weeks of negative headlines and briefings against her, including a row over her salary.

Her son, Liam Conlon, was elected as Labour MP for Beckenham and Penge in July.

In 2022, Labour said it planned to abolish the 805-member Lords, replacing it with a “new, reformed upper chamber”.

But this was watered down before July’s election, with Labour committing to consult on plans for an alternative second chamber, whilst immediately axing the 92 places for hereditary peers and introducing a retirement age of 80.

The party also vowed to introduce new rules on participation, and a new process to make it easier to remove “disgraced” peers.

To get their legislation through parliament at speed Labour will need to be able to win major votes in the House of Lords.

The Conservatives have the most peers, with 273, while Labour has 187 and the Liberal Democrats have 78.

There are also 184 “crossbench” peers who are not aligned to any party.

A Labour source said that the Conservatives had “stuffed the House of Lords, creating a serious imbalance” that needed to be “corrected”.

“We are committed to an overdue programme of reform and have already laid legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords,” the source added.

The Conservatives named Dame Therese, a veteran of three Tory cabinets and deputy prime minister under Liz Truss, to the House of Lords.

She served as Tory MP for Suffolk Coastal from 2010 until she lost her seat at the July election.

Rachel Maclean, the former housing minister who lost her Redditch seat in 2024, will also join the Conservative benches on the House of Lords.

The Conservatives nominated Young, a university friend of former PM Boris Johnson who founded the West London Free School in 2011.

Young, the son of Labour supporting academic Lord Young, said he looked forward to working with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch “to restore free speech to pride of place in our democracy and repair the damage Keir Starmer”.

Nigel Biggar, the emeritus professor of moral theology at the University of Oxford who last year wrote a defence of colonialism, will also join the House of Lords as a Conservative.

Coinciding with the announcement he would join the Lords, Biggar published an article in the Telegraph coming out as a Conservative supporter after a life-time working as a priest and academic.

The Lib Dems nominated Sheffield City Councillor Shaffaq Mohammed and long-serving campaigner Mark Pack – who is currently the party’s president.