More teeth for honours watchdog

Financial backers of political parties who are then nominated for honours will face renewed scrutiny

The Neill Committee report has proposed new rules directly concerned with how political honours, including peerages, are awarded by the prime minister and party leaders.

The current Political Honours Scrutiny Committee should be renamed the Honours Scrutiny Committee, it says, emphasising that honours should not be political.

This new committee should investigate cases when a person is nominated for an honour of the rank CBE or higher and has directly or indirectly donated £5,000 or more to a political party in the previous five years.

It must, recommends the report, "satisfy itself that the donation has made no contribution to the nomination for an honour".

The Honours Scrutiny Committee should also monitor the relationship between nominations for honours - again, from a CBE upwards - and donations made to political parties or organisations associated with them, to make sure an "undue preponderance of honours" does not go to donors to party funds.