Former senior civil servant Sue Gray is to be given a life peerage by the King, it has been confirmed.
Gray departed the civil service last year to become Keir Starmer’s chief of staff and then left that role in October.
Her name appears this afternoon on a 38-strong list of peerage nominees who are set to join the House of Lords.
Gray – who became a household name due to her investigation of the Partygate scandal in 2022 – left her role as second permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office in March 2023 to join Starmer’s team, but quit in October this year to avoid “becoming a distraction” amid intense briefings about her.
She was expected to take up a role as the prime minister's envoy for nations and regions but eventually decided not to accept the position.
By entering the House of Lords, Gray joins her son in parliament; Liam Conlon was elected as MP for Beckenham and Penge in July.
In the civil service, Gray's former roles include permanent secretary of Northern Ireland's Department of Finance, and director general of propriety and ethics in the Cabinet Office from 2012-2018.
Earlier in her career, Gray worked in the transport and health departments and in the Department for Work and Pensions. She took a career break in the late 1980s when she bought and ran a pub in Newry, Northern Ireland.
Other confirmed new peers who have worked in government roles include:
- Dame Thérèse Coffey, a former deputy prime minister, environment secretary and work and pensions secretary in successive Conservative governments;
- Kevin Brennan, a former minister at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Children, Schools and Families under Gordon Brown;
- Rachel Maclean, a former minister of state for housing and planning;
- Gerard Lemos, the current chair of National Savings and Investments;
- Anji Hunter, a former head of government relations in Downing Street; and
- Margaret Curran, a former minister in the Scottish Executive.
The peerages were nominated by the leaders of parliament's three biggest parties: Keir Starmer (Labour), Kemi Badenoch (Conservative) and Ed Davey (Lib Dem).
Here is the full list:
Nominations from the leader of the Labour Party
- Professor Wendy Alexander – vice chair of the British Council, former member of the Scottish Parliament for Paisley North and previously Labour leader in the Scottish Parliament
- Sir Brendan Barber – former general secretary of the Trades Union Congress and former chair of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service
- Luciana Berger – former MP for Liverpool Wavertree and current chair of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance
- Mary Bousted – formerly the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, and education policy adviser
- Kevin Brennan – former MP for Cardiff West and former minister of state at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and parliamentary under secretary of state at the Department for Children, Schools and Families
- Lyn Brown – former MP for West Ham and former shadow minister
- Dinah Caine – chair of Camden STEAM, formerly chair of Goldsmiths University and chief executive and chair of Creative Skillset
- Kay Carberry – former assistant general secretary of the British Trades Union Congress
- Margaret Curran – former MP for Glasgow East and formerly minister within the Scottish Executive
- Thangam Debbonaire – former MP for Bristol West and former shadow secretary of state
- Julie Elliott – former MP for Sunderland Central and former shadow minister
- David Evans – former Labour Party regional director, assistant general secretary and general secretary of the Labour Party 2020-2024
- Sue Gray – former chief of staff to the prime minister and former Cabinet Office second permanent secretary
- Theresa Griffin – former MEP for North West England
- Anji Hunter – senior advisor at Edelman, and former head of government relations in Downing Street
- Carwyn Jones – former member of the Senedd for Bridgend and first minister of Wales
- Mike Katz – national chair of Jewish Labour Movement and a former Camden councillor
- Gerard Lemos – social policy expert and chair of English Heritage, chair of National Savings & Investments, and chair of London Institute of Banking and Finance
- Alison Levitt KC – master of the bench of the Inner Temple. Previously principal legal advisor to the director of public prosecutions, from 2009-2015 (Starmer was DPP from 2008-2013), and a circuit judge specialising in serious crime, including rape
- Anne Longfield– campaigner for children who formerly served as the Children’s Commissioner for England. Founder and executive chair of the Centre for Young Lives
- Deborah Mattinson – former director of strategy to Sir Keir Starmer. Co-founder of BritainThinks
- Steve McCabe – former MP for Birmingham Hall Green and Birmingham Selly Oak, and former government whip
- Claude Moraes – former MEP for London and chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee
- Wendy Nichols – UNISON Yorkshire and Humberside regional convenor and branch secretary and Labour councillor
- Simon Pitkeathley – currently the chief executive of Camden Town Unlimited and Euston Town, formerly the Mayor of London’s champion for small business
- Dame Anne Marie Rafferty – professor of nursing policy and former president of the Royal College of Nursing
- Krish Raval – founding director of Faith in Leadership
- Marvin Rees – former mayor of Bristol and head of Bristol City Council. Former journalist, voluntary sector manager and NHS public health manager
- Revd Dr Russell David Rook – partner at the Good Faith Partnership and Anglican priest
- Phil Wilson – former MP for Sedgefield, and former opposition assistant whip
Nominations from the leader of the Conservative Party
- Nigel Biggar– regius professor emeritus of moral theology at the University of Oxford and Anglican priest
- Joanne Cash – co-founder of Parent Gym and barrister serving as the southeastern circuit junior and a member of the Bar Human Rights Committee
- Dame Thérèse Coffey – former deputy prime minister and former Member of Parliament for Suffolk Coastal
- Roger Evans – former deputy mayor of London and former member of the London Assembly for Havering and Redbridge
- Rachel Maclean – former MP for Redditch and former minister of state for housing and planning
- Toby Young – founder and director of the Free Speech Union, and an associate editor of The Spectator
Nominations from the leader of the Liberal Democrats
- Shaffaq Mohammed – former Sheffield City councillor and chair of the Liberal Democrat Carers Commission
- Dr Mark Pack – former president of the Liberal Democrats