London Mayor Sadiq Khan has been appointed to the United Kingdom's House of Lords by outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in one of the final acts of Starmer's premiership before he hands power to his successor early next week.

Khan, a former Labour MP for the south London constituency of Tooting who has served as mayor of the capital since 2016, is currently midway through his third mayoral term. He was named alongside 25 others spanning politics, philanthropy, the military, business, and civil society. The House of Lords is the upper chamber of the UK parliament — an unelected body whose members, known as peers, scrutinise, revise, and vote on legislation passed up from the elected House of Commons. Life peers, as these new appointees will become, hold their seats permanently.

The list reflects a broad range of backgrounds. Among Labour's 16 nominees are Parvais Jabbar and Saul Lehrfreund, human rights campaigners who co-founded the Death Penalty Project, and Cathy Ashley, a families' rights advocate and former head of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. The Conservatives nominated three peers, including General Sir Patrick Sanders, former Chief of the General Staff of the British Army. The Liberal Democrats put forward five, among them economist Tim Leunig of the British social innovation foundation Nesta. Two crossbench peers — those with no party affiliation — were also named, including former senior judge Sir Brian Leveson, who led the landmark 2011 Leveson Inquiry into press conduct following a widespread phone-hacking scandal.

Notably absent from the honours list were nominees from the right-wing populist party Reform UK. Nigel Farage, who remains Reform's leader despite recently resigning as one of its MPs, criticised the omission, saying the appointments made the Lords "even more unrepresentative." Before these new nominations, the Conservatives held a numerical advantage in the chamber with 246 seats, against Labour's 216.

Khan's elevation to the Lords carries practical political significance beyond the honour itself. His new status would allow Starmer's successor — Greater Manchester's mayor Andy Burnham, who is expected to become Labour leader on Friday and prime minister on Monday, 20 July — to appoint Khan to a ministerial role when the new government is formed, though no such appointment has been confirmed. Khan will continue to serve as London's elected mayor regardless.