Blair backs down on working peers

Tony Blair has had to accept creating more Conservative working peers than Labour ones after four of his nominations were blocked by an independent commission.

Downing Street has today named 23 new life members of the House of Lords – six for Labour, seven for the Tories, five for the Liberal Democrats and three for the Democratic Unionist party (DUP).

Scotland's lord advocate, Colin Boyd, is the only cross-bench peer, while former Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, who won a Nobel peace prize for his role in the 1998 Good Friday agreement but lost his seat last May, has also been honoured.

The prime minister originally nominated ten people for peerages, but four, all major donors to the Labour party, were withdrawn after being blocked by the House of Lords appointments commission.

The commission's decision sparked the loans for peerages row, which is the subject of a Scotland Yard investigation and has prompted a review of both party funding in Britain and a new urgency to complete the process of Lords reform begun in 1997.

When Labour came to power, they abolished the rights of all but 92 hereditary peers to sit in the upper House, and the chamber is now largely made up of politically appointed peers. All the main parties can nominate peers, although Mr Blair has the final say.

It is usual for Labour to appoint more peers than the Conservatives, but today's list bucks this trend. Mr Blair reportedly decided not to find replacements for the four blocked nominations so as not to delay the publication of the names any further.

None of the new Labour peers are donors, although as a former head of the Transport and General Workers union (TGWU), Bill Morris comes close. Another senior union figure and former Labour MP, Unison's Maggie Jones, has also been made a peer.

On the Tory benches there are some party donors, however – party treasurer Jonathan Marland has donated £154,000 over the past two years; Mohamed Iltaf Sheikh, head of the Conservative Muslim forum, has given £37,501 and David James has given £18,550.

The other Labour peers are as follows: English Partnerships chairwoman Margaret Ford; Denise Kingsmill, the former deputy chairman of the Competition Commission and chair of the government's working for people taskforce; former minister Joyce Quin; and former Home Office minister Keith Bradley.

Other new Conservative peers are: Sandip Verma, who contested Wolverhampton for the party last year; Eurosceptic Charles Leach; former party backer John Taylor; and Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, the chairman of the Local Government Association (LGA).

The Lib Dems in the Lords will be joined by former MPs John Burnett and Brian Cotter, former MEP Robin Teverson, former Conservative minister John Lee who defected to the Lib Dems in 2001 and Celia Thomas, who worked in the Lords whips office.

DUP leader Ian Paisley's wife, Eileen, a former member of Belfast city council, has been made a peer for the unionist party, along with party chairman and assembly member Maurice Morrow and lord mayor of Belfast Wallace Browne.