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 The BBC's Robin Oakley"A controversial figure"  real 28k  Lord Strathclyde"Every single treasurer of the Conservative Party has ended up in the House of Lords"  real 28kFormer Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath:"The whole of this situation is deplorable" real 28k |
Mr Ashcroft, the Conservatives' main donor, is becoming a lord on condition that he returns from Belize to the UK to live.
Labour MP Tony Wright, a member of the constitutional and parliamentary affairs committee, said the row demonstrated the need for reform of the House of Lords.
 Tony Wright: Honours systems is being "sullied"
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Mr Ashcroft, a millionaire business tycoon who spends most of his time in Belize, was nominated by Tory leader William Hague and is included in a list of new working peers.
He has given what Downing Street said was a "clear and unequivocal assurance" that he would will take up permanent residence in the UK - a condition described as "unprecedented" by former Tory leader in the upper house, Lord Cranborne.
Ashcroft file |
14th on Sunday Times 'rich list'
Tory treasurer since 1998
Donated £2m over two years to party
Dual British-Belizean nationality
Maidenhead voter, lives abroad
Times libel case settled December 1999
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The former Conservative Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath, has also condemned the decision as "deplorable".
He told BBC Radio 4's Any Questions programme: "It has lowered the whole standing of our political institutions throughout the world."
Sir Edward also attacked the principle of attaching conditions to a peerage.
"If you extend that through public institutions, where are you going to end, promising people if they do this or do that they can become members of the House of Lords.
 Sir Edward Heath: Peerage is "deplorable"
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Sir Edward said Mr Ashcroft's £3m donation to the Conservative Party must have been for some purpose, "and now we see what the purpose was".
Mr Ashcroft said he was "thrilled and honoured to have become a working peer".
He said: "As a businessman, as a campaigner against crime and drugs, and as a political party fundraiser, there are a number of subjects in which I have both great interest and some experience. I hope to put these to work."
Stepped down
The Conservative Party said that Mr Ashcroft had also stepped down from his post as Belize's Ambassador to the United Nations in preparation for taking his place in the Lords.
 Sebastian Coe is to enter the Lords
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Lord Strathclyde said Labour was attacking the decision in an attempt to divert attention from Prime Minister Tony Blair's "stuffing" of the Lords with his own supporters.
Mr Ashcroft's name was on a list of 33 working peers - 20 Labour, four Conservative and nine Liberal Democrats published on Friday.
Their arrival will bring the number of Labour peers up to 202, alongside 236 Conservatives, 63 Liberal Democrats, 161 crossbenchers and 26 Bishops and Archbishops.
Former Olympic gold medallist and now private secretary to William Hague Sebastian Coe was also among those Tories given life peerages.
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