I would not submit resignation honours if PM, says Starmer

The Labour leader said it is ‘very hard to justify’ having former prime ministers put forward nominations for peerages and other honours.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he would not have a resignation honours list if he serves as prime minister (Ben Birchall/PA) (PA Wire)

Sir Keir Starmer has ruled out putting forward a resignation honours list should he have a stint in No 10.

The Labour leader made the commitment as he criticised Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to approve Boris Johnson’s roll call of honours names before MPs had ruled on whether the former leader lied to Parliament with his partygate assurances.

Since the list was published, the Commons Privileges Committee has concluded that Mr Johnson – who dramatically quit as an MP after learning about the probe’s verdict – should have faced a 90-day suspension for misleading the House and being complicit in a campaign of intimidation against the panel investigating him.

I think it is easier to be clean about this and say no, I wouldn’t do it

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer

Sir Keir said the tradition of former prime ministers being permitted to submit a resignation honours list is “very hard to justify”.

The Opposition leader told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there are “other avenues” for commending those who have carried out nationally-important work.

He added: “I think it is easier to be clean about this and say no, I wouldn’t do it.

“Tony Blair didn’t do it and I wouldn’t do it.”

Mr Sunak has argued that he followed convention in accepting Mr Johnson’s nominees for honours without interference.

But Sir Keir said the Conservative Party leader was “wrong” to have “waved through” Mr Johnson’s list when his situation was “unprecedented”.

MPs could potentially vote on whether to back the Privileges Committee’s report on Monday.

“We’ve never had a situation like this where a previous prime minister has been found to have lied to Parliament, not once but repeatedly,” Sir Keir, a former director of public prosecutions, told Today.

“He has now pretty well been stripped of any involvement in Parliament. That is unprecedented.

“Why on earth didn’t Rishi Sunak say ‘I’ll put your list on one side, former prime minister. I will get to it but I am determined to see the findings of the Privileges Committee before I do so.

“‘Because if, for example, the Privileges Committee says you lied to Parliament, then I’m not going to put your list through’.”

It comes after a video emerged of a party held at Conservative Campaign Headquarters in December 2020 while Covid restrictions were in place.

The event was attended by failed London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey and Tory aide Ben Mallet, with the pair due to receive a peerage and an OBE respectively as part of Mr Johnson’s honours package.

Sir Keir said he does not believe either should receive an honour, and argued that “most” of the public would think it “simply inappropriate” for them to be recognised.

The question of stripping those involved in lockdown-busting events of their honours has divided senior Tories.

Cabinet minister Michael Gove said London Assembly Member Mr Bailey and Mr Mallet should not be stripped of their honours because rules allow outgoing prime ministers to make such appointments.

But former justice secretary Sir Robert Buckland urged the pair to consider declining the honours.