Iceland boss and swimmer Davies among new peers

Olympic Swimming silver medallist Sharron Davies and the boss of the supermarket giant Iceland have been named among dozens of new people nominated for peerages by Sir Keir Starmer.

- KATE DEVLIN

The prime minister has put forward 25 new members for the House of Lords, including his former director of communications Matthew Doyle and Rachel Reeves’s ex-chief of staff Katie Martin.

After being nominated, the prospective peers need to be vetted by the House of Lords Appointments Commission before they are appointed, usually a formality.

The list of potential new Lords follows staunch opposition from peers to Labour’s flagship Employment Rights Bill.

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. “