Keir Starmer appoints 25 Labour peers, including ex-government aides, in a strategic move to strengthen Labour’s legislative influence in House of Lords.
The Guardian was the first to reveal the appointment of former No. 10 director of communications Matthew Doyle and former Rachel Reeves chief of staff Katie Martin to the upper house.
Peerages will also be given to Richard Walker, the executive chair of Iceland and a Labour donor who moved from backing the Conservatives prior to the 2024 election, and Carol Linforth, a former head of staff for operations in the Labour party.
Len Duvall, the chair of the London assembly, and Michael Barber, a Whitehall veteran who oversaw Tony Blair's delivery unit and currently counsels Starmer, are also on Labour's list.
With this change, Starmer has now appointed 62 peers. This comprises seven peers who have been appointed to clerical positions and a tranche of thirty peers blazoned in December of last time.
Campaigners for electoral change, who contend that the appointment process is undemocratic and that high ministers exploit it to award their abettors , are sure to condemn the decision.
In its manifesto, Labour pledged to contemporize the Lords by espousing an obligatory withdrawal age of 80, changing the selection process, and ultimately replacing the Lords
with"an indispensable alternate chamber that's further representative of the regions and nations."
A Labour source said:
“The Tories stuffed the House of Lords, creating a serious imbalance that has allowed them to frustrate our plans to make working families better off. This needs to be corrected to deliver on our mandate from the British people.
We will continue to progress our programme of reform, which includes removing the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords.”
In recent months, the Lords have been accused of obstructing government legislation aimed at strengthening workers' rights, renters' rights, and the elimination of hereditary peers.
Three new peers were appointed by the Conservatives: the historian Simon Heffer, the gender-critical activist and Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, and John Redwood, a former Conservative MP and head of Margaret Thatcher's strategy section.
Five were appointed by the Liberal Democrats, including Dominic Hubbard and John Russell, two hereditary lords who had been threatened with expulsion from the upper house due to the abolition of their seats.
The others are Mike Dixon, the party's chief executive, Rhiannon Leaman, Ed Davey's chief of staff since 2019, and Sarah Teather, who was children's minister from 2010 to 2012.
The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Davey, stated that the selections made by his party would
"deliver the change our country desperately needs, including reform of the House of Lords."
Despite requesting in a letter to Starmer in August, Reform UK did not appoint any Lords.
The Conservatives had 282 peers as of Wednesday, while the Liberal Democrats have 75 and Labour has 209. There are forty peers who are not affiliated and 177 cross-benchers.
According to the Lords library, David Cameron made 245 peers while in government, 120 of them in the first 18 months. With 101 in his first 18 months in office, Tony Blair produced 374, more than any other prime minister.
Despite his promise to reduce the size of the Lords, Boris Johnson appointed 87 peers. Rishi Sunak produced 51, Theresa May produced 43, and Liz Truss, who ruled for just 49 days, produced 29.
Parliament is now considering legislation to remove 91 hereditary peers from the upper house. The law is being thrown back and forth between the Commons and Lords during the last rounds of parliamentary examination, or ping-pong.
If it is passed into law, the opposition party will still have a majority over Labour even though 44 hereditary Tory lords will be removed from the red benches.
At the beginning of 2026, Angela Smith, the leader of
Labour's House of Lords, is scheduled to commence the next phase of the upper
house's reforms.
What legislative defeats are Labour aiming to avoid with this list?
Keir Starmer's 25 new Labour peers target Lords defeats on flagship employment rights, renters' reform and planning deregulation bills, where Tory and crossbench resistance has stalled progress despite Commons majorities.
Employment Rights Bill faces pushback on zero- hours bans and day- one illegal redundancy protections; redundant Labour voices reduce anticipated amendments or blocks. Tory peers seek to adulterate no- fault eviction checks, with new nominees like ex-Treasury assistant Katie Martin bolstering the government's case.
Crossbench and Lib Dem enterprises over green belt corrosion; peerages shift the balance to pass streamlined blessings briskly. These additions cut projected defeat rates from 30 to below 20 on precedence measures, buying time for broader Lords reforms like age caps while icing 2026 delivery on fiat pledges.