Sadiq Khan joins House of Lords as outgoing UK PM names 26 new peers

In one of his final acts before stepping down, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced 26 new appointments to the House of Lords, including London Mayor Sadiq Khan. The appointments span multiple sectors and political affiliations, reflecting a broad cross-section of British public life. Khan, a former Labour MP who has served three terms as London mayor since 2016, will now join the upper chamber as a life peer with the ability to scrutinise, revise, and vote on legislation.

The honours list reflects the outgoing prime minister's traditional prerogative to recommend political peerages before his successor takes office. Of the 26 nominees, Labour secured 16 appointments, the Liberal Democrats five, the Conservatives three, and two crossbench peers with no party affiliation were selected. The appointments include human rights campaigners Parvais Jabbar and Saul Lehrfreund, who co-founded the Death Penalty Project, and Cathy Ashley, a families' rights campaigner and former head of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

Conservative nominations included General Sir Patrick Sanders, former Chief of the General Staff of the British Army. The Liberal Democrats nominated Tim Leunig, chief economist at social innovation foundation Nesta. Among the crossbench peers is Sir Brian Leveson, a former senior judge who led the 2011 inquiry into British press conduct following the phone-hacking scandal.

Notably, Starmer made no nominations for Reform UK, the right-wing party that now holds seven seats in the House of Commons. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage criticised the decision, stating the upper house remains unrepresentative. Before these appointments, the Conservatives held 246 House of Lords seats compared with Labour's 216, giving the opposition a numerical advantage in the chamber.