THE list of individuals nominated by Liz Truss to receive honours and peerages has been published amid the New Years honours list announcement.
The former prime minister, who quit in October 2022 after 49 days in office, has nominated three people to receive life peerages and eight people to receive honours including MBEs, OBEs and knighthoods.
The list had been fraught with controversy even before being published, with calls for Rishi Sunak to block the handout of honours given the short-lived nature of Truss’ premiership.
Publishing it at the end of the year - nine months late - and amid the New Years could potentially reduce media coverage. The release also also coincides with parliamentary recess.
A government source told The Times earlier this week: “I think it is very likely done to remove the focus and attention from a ‘standalone’ announcement, which No 10 will hope will dilute the embarrassment.”
The list she submitted in March was understood to have contained nominations for four life peerages and eight or nine individuals recommended for lesser honours.
Only one name has been removed. Mark Littlewood, head of the free-market think tank the Institute for Economic Affairs, does not appear.
It was recently revealed the economics body, which "incubated" Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng as junior MPs, appeared on UK media an average of 14 times a day in the last year.
Following the publication of her resignation honours list, Truss said: “I am delighted these champions for the Conservative causes of freedom, limited government and a proud and sovereign Britain have been suitably honoured.”
The Vote Leave campaign bosses have both been rewarded by Truss.
Matthew Elliott (below right), the chief executive of the Vote Leave campaign and Jon Moynihan (below left), the former chairman of Vote Leave have both been nominated for life peerages.
Moyihan is also a venture capitalist who donated £20,000 to Truss’s leadership campaign and is the former chief executive and executive chairman of the PA Consulting Group.
Ruth Porter, Truss’s deputy chief of staff in 2022 has also been nominated for a peerage.
Truss has nominated two people to receive titles for Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and one for Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
People are recognised with this honour if they have a prominent but lesser role at national level or a leading role at regional level.
It also goes to those who make a distinguished, innovative contribution to any area.
Shirley Ida Conran (above) has been nominated for services to mathematics education as founder of the Maths Anxiety Trust and Jacqueline Doyle-Price MP for public and political service as minister of state for industry and Member of Parliament for Thurrock.
Conran donated £5,000 to Ms Truss to support activity in her constituency, according to the public register of interest.
The nominee for a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire honour is Alec Edward Shelbrooke MP, for public and political service as minister of state for defence procurement and Member of Parliament for Elmet and Rothwell.
Two people have been nominated for the Commanders of the Order of the British Empire honour.
Sophie Ina Jarvis, for public service as special adviser from July 2019 to October 2022 at the Department for International Trade, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and 10 Downing Street.
And Shabbir Riyaz Merali, for public service as economic adviser and special adviser from February 2018 to October 2022 at the Treasury, Department for International Trade, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and 10 Downing Street.
Robert Butler MP and Suzanne Webb MP have been nominated to become Officers of the Order of the British Empire.
Buter has been nominated for political and public service as parliamentary private secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Member of Parliament for Aylesbury.
Webb, for political and public service as parliamentary private secretary at the Department for International Trade and 10 Downing Street, and Member of Parliament for Stourbridge.
David Hills is the only person nominated to be a member of the Order of the British Empire. He has received the nomination for political service as Conservative Association chairman in South West Norfolk.
It was previously reported that at least two people turned down honours nominations from Truss.
One reportedly cited embarrassment and the other said they did not deserve it.
Labour has branded the list a “slap in the face to working people” while the Liberal Democrats have described it as a “shameless move”.
The Electoral Reform Society has criticised the list, which proposes a new peer for every day-and-a-half Ms Truss was in office, and called for “urgent reform” to the current system.
Willie Sullivan, senior director for campaigns at the Electoral Reform Society, said: “It will feel like an insult to many to see Liz Truss handing out peerages to friends and supporters after her disastrously short stint as prime minister. It looks like the political class dishing out rewards for failure at a time when many people are still suffering the effects from her turbulent premiership.
“Liz Truss’s resignation honours list also adds yet more peers to the House of Lords, which already has around 800 members making it the second largest legislative chamber in the world after China’s National People’s Congress.
“This all highlights just how rotten and out of control the current peerages system is, and why it needs urgent reform to prevent it causing any more damage to the public’s trust in politics. It is clear this is not a fit nor proper way to choose who sits in our Parliament.
“This is why we need to replace the bloated and unelected Lords with a smaller elected chamber where the people of this country, not former prime ministers, choose who sits in Parliament making the laws we all live under.”
