Ex-Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies and Iceland boss Richard Walker among new peerage nominations

Olympic Swimming Silver Medalist Sharron Davies and the boss of supermarket giant Iceland have been named among dozens of new names to join the House of Lords.

Keir Starmer has appointed 25 new members of the upper house, including former communications director Matthew Doyle and Rachel Reeves’ former chief of staff Katie Martin.

The new Lords’ list follows fierce opposition from colleagues to Labour’s flagship workers’ rights bill.

A Labor source said: “⁠The Conservatives have packed the House of Lords and created a serious imbalance, allowing them to defeat our plans to make working families better off. This needs to be fixed so we can deliver on the mandate we received from the British people.”

Women’s rights activist Sharron Davies was nominated by Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, as well as former Conservative cabinet minister John Redwood and journalist and historian Simon Heffer.

Iceland’s boss, Richard Walker, left the Labor Conservative Party before the last election.

At the weekend, a Labor source said he was “a determined advocate for families struggling with the costs of living, from campaigning to make baby food more affordable to helping customers avoid loan sharks. He will be a strong voice in Parliament and we are delighted to have him on board.”

Mr Walker had previously donated to the Conservatives and was considering running for Parliament on the party’s behalf but resigned in 2023 before backing Labour.

He said at the time that the Conservative Party was “moving away” from him, while Labor was “moving towards the centrist pragmatic views that I have long held”.

In 2019, Ms Davies was accused of “inciting hatred” for saying trans women should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports.

The swimmer, who won a silver medal and two Commonwealth gold medals at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, denied his comments were transphobic and claimed he had spoken to many female athletes who “feel the same way”.

“I have nothing against anyone who wants to be transgender [sic]”But I believe there is a fundamental difference between the binary gender you are born with and the gender you may identify with. To protect women’s sport, those with a male gender advantage must not be able to compete in women’s sport,” Davies wrote on Twitter.

The list includes another Labor deputy, Carol Linforth, as well as Sir Michael Barber, who served as No. 10 in Sir Tony Blair’s government.

Last year, he was appointed as an advisor to help Sir Keir advance the delivery of his five ‘mandates’.

The Liberal Democrats also announced five new members, but none from Reform.

This is breaking news, more to come…