Labour's 11 ennobled donors

The House of Lords is home to many party donors

Lord Hamlyn is one of a number of high profile donors to the Labour party who have been given peerages.

Eleven individuals have been ennobled after donating more than £5,000 to the party at least once between 1996 and 1999.

Lord Sainsbury has been a well-known supporter of the party. Now a government minister, he had made donations in 1996 and 1997 before receiving his peerage.

The government was criticised by some sections of the press for making Granada chairman Alex Bernstein a peer last year.

Lord Sainsbury is now a government minister

He became Lord Bernstein of Cragwell and had donated money in 1997 and 1999.

But, speaking in an interview in The Times newspaper after the row, Lord Bernstein dismissed notions of impropriety, saying: "The Daily Mail accused me of getting it [the peerage] as a reward for giving money to the Labour party.

"As I've been sitting around all month in the House of Lords, I find the idea of being a working peer as a reward is rather a curious concept anyway."

Media donors

Northern Foods chairman Christopher Haskins donated money every year between 1996 and 1999 and was granted a peerage in 1998.

He is currently chairman of the Cabinet Office's Better Regulation Task Force.

Ennobled donors from the world of media and the arts include broadcaster Melvyn Bragg, film-maker David Puttnam, novelist Ruth Rendell and publisher Robert Gavron.

Top barrister Peter Goldsmith, Oxfam chairman Joel Joffe, who sits as a crossbencher, and the now-deceased industrialist Michael Montague have also been made peers.