Partygate investigator Sue Gray made a life peer by Keir Starmer

Sue Gray, the civil servant who investigated Partygate and went on to become Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, has been made a life peer, Downing Street said.

Gray is among 30 new Labour peers to be appointed, in a boost for the party's benches in the House of Lords.

Number 10 announced a raft of new appointments on Friday afternoon, which also included former shadow cabinet minister Thangam Debbonaire and Conservative Liz Truss’s deputy prime minister Dame Therese Coffey.

Overall, 38 new appointments to the House of Lords were announced, with six from the Tories and two from the Liberal Democrats, as well as 30 from Labour.

Gray came to prominence in 2022 with the report into Downing Street parties, and then became Starmer's chief of staff in opposition before following him into Number 10.

She quit the role in October after a series of internal rows, including a reported dispute over pay cuts among special government advisers and alleged blocking and delaying of government appointments.

Toby Young, the founder and director of the Free Speech Union, is among those who has been made a Conservative life peer, while former MP Luciana Berger who resigned from Labour in 2019 over the antisemitism scandal before rejoining in 2023 will sit on the Labour Lords benches.

The six nominations from Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch include Dame Therese, former housing minister Rachel Maclean, Oxford professor Nigel Biggar, former deputy mayor of London Roger Evans and Joanne Cash, a barrister and co-founder of Parent Gym.

Mike Katz, the national chairman of the Jewish Labour Movement and Anne Longfield, who served as the Children’s Commissioner for England between 2015 and 2021 will also be made life peers.

Among the other Labour names on the list put forward by Starmer are former MPs Ms Debbonaire, Julie Elliott, Lyn Brown, Steve McCabe and Kevin Brennan, as well as former Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones.

Debbonaire had served as Labour’s shadow culture secretary but lost her seat at the general election to the Green Party.Gray is not the only member of Starmer’s inner circle to be nominated, with Deborah Mattinson, his former director of strategy, also getting a nod.

There are also two nominations from the leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Ed Davey, including Mark Pack who has been president of the party since 2020.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds was asked whether Gray could return as a minister if she was given a seat in the Lords.

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He told broadcasters that “decisions about Government are for the prime minister, not for me, but I would be really pleased – speculation at this stage – to see a really strong set of people come into the House of Lords to help the Government deliver on its agenda”.

Labour has pledged to reform the House of Lords and has already moved to get rid of hereditary peers. The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill is making its way through the upper chamber.

It cleared its first hurdle in the Lords in December, having already gone through Commons stages.The Lords has some 800 members, most of whom are life peers, and adding more Labour peers will boost the party’s representation in the chamber.

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