Former UK deputy prime minister Dame Thérèse Coffey and ex-housing minister Rachel Maclean are among six Conservative politicians who will be awarded peerages this week, according to people familiar with the process.
A raft of fresh political nominations are set to be unveiled on Friday, including 30 Labour ennoblements, six Tories and several Liberal Democrats.
Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff Sue Gray will be elevated to the House of Lords, the FT reported earlier this month, alongside a string of ex-Labour MPs including Thangam Debbonaire, Lyn Brown, Julie Elliott and Kevin Brennan.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has been given an allocation of six peerages, which is set to include Coffey and Maclean — both former Tory MPs who lost their seats in the July general election.
Coffey, an ex-environment secretary and former work and pensions secretary, was a key ally of Liz Truss, who named her deputy prime minister during her stint in Downing Street.
Maclean is a senior ally of Badenoch and announced last week that she had begun a new role as director of strategy for the Conservative leader. “Our job is to renew our party, unite the right, and save our country from socialism,” Maclean said on X.
Coffey and Maclean did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The House of Lords Appointments Commission, which approves the decisions, was scrambled on Wednesday to green light Badenoch’s proposals at the eleventh hour, according to one person briefed on the matter. The commission declined to comment.
Former Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak’s resignation peerages list has been submitted for approval by the commission but will be published at a later date, according to officials.
He has already elevated his former chief of staff Liam Booth-Smith to the Lords in a dissolution honours list that was published in July.
Consternation is growing in Conservative circles that Sunak has not put down any donors on his final schedule of names, ending a tradition that Tory officials fear could deter deep-pocketed backers from giving significant sums in future.
Such a move would be welcomed by anti-corruption campaigners, however.
Labour figures have pointed out that their party has a relatively modest presence in the House of Lords compared with the seismic Commons majority it won in July.
Labour has just 185 peers, compared with 273 Tories, 78 Liberal Democrats and 184 cross-benchers, who are not affiliated with any party. There are also 25 bishops, 57 peers who are non-affiliated or belong to smaller parties, as well as the Lord Speaker.
Starmer is abolishing all hereditary peers in a bid to reduce the overall size of the Lords, which at more than 800 members is the second-largest legislative chamber in the world behind China’s rubber-stamp National People’s Congress.
