Iceland boss and top Downing Street aide among Starmer’s new Labour peers

The chairman of the supermarket chain Iceland, Richard Walker, and Matthew Doyle, a former Number 10 director of communications, have been nominated for a peerage by the Prime Minister.

Katie Martin, a former senior adviser to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, is also among the 25 nominations from Sir Keir Starmer, according to a list published by No 10 on Wednesday.

The series of Labour appointments to Parliament’s upper chamber comes as the Government has faced staunch opposition from peers over its flagship workers’ rights legislation.

Meanwhile, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has nominated former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, who in recent years has become a women’s rights activists in the debate over trans rights.

Sir John Redwood, the ex-Conservative Cabinet minister, and journalist and historian Simon Heffer, have also been nominated by Mrs Badenoch.

Also included in Labour’s list of new peers is Carol Linforth, the former Labour Party chief of staff.

She is the Labour staffer who could be seen removing Sir Keir’s jacket when he was glitter-bombed during his keynote conference speech in 2023.

Sir Michael Barber, who served in the Blair government’s delivery unit, and returned to Sir Keir’s Government as an adviser last year, is also on Labour’s list of nominations.

Elsewhere, the Liberal Democrats have made a total of five nominations, including former MP and coalition government minister, Sarah Teather.

Two of the Lib Dem nominations, Lord Addington and Earl Russell, currently sit in the upper chamber as hereditary peers.

The party has granted them life peerages to continue in their roles once the Government’s current plans to abolish the rights of the hereditary peers to sit in the Lords becomes law.

Similarly, Crossbench peer the Earl of Kinnoull has also been nominated for a life peerage.

A Labour source suggested further appointments by the party to the Lords could follow throughout the current Parliament.

They 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.”

Sir Keir has now appointed a total of 62 peers since Labour entered Government, including the 25 on Wednesday evening, 30 last December, and seven peerages that were granted for ministerial appointments.

The Conservatives remain the largest bloc in the Lords, with 282 peers compared with Labour’s 234.

There are 177 crossbench peers and 75 from the Liberal Democrats.

Labour is undertaking plans to remove the remaining 91 hereditary peers from the upper chamber, with its House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill.

The Bill is in the final stages of parliamentary scrutiny, known as “ping-pong”, where it is batted back and forth between the Commons and Lords.

Should it become law, it will remove some 44 hereditary Tory peers from the red benches, but will still leave the opposition party with a majority over Labour.

Baroness Angela Smith, Labour’s House of Lords leader, is due to begin the next stage in a series of reforms to the upper chamber at the start of 2026.

This will include plans to remove peers who do not turn up often enough to contribute to debates, and requiring members to retire at the end of the Parliament in which they have their 80th birthday.