New Year Honours: Political veteran Frank Field given exclusive honour

A former minister who served as an MP for 40 years is to receive one of the UK's most exclusive accolades in the New Year's Honours list.

Lord Field of Birkenhead - formerly Frank Field - becomes a Companion of Honour, a title shared by a maximum of 65 people at one time.

He joins figures including musicians Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Elton John, and author JK Rowling.

Lord Field said it was a "lovely thought" to be added.

Among other honours in the world of politics, former deputy House of Commons Speaker and Labour MP Sylvia Heal becomes a dame, while there are knighthoods for Conservative MPs Robert Goodwill and Bill Wiggin.

Lord Field was MP for Birkenhead, Merseyside, from 1979 to 2019, first as a Labour MP then, towards the end of his career, as an independent.

A long-time campaigner for pensions change and against child poverty, he served from 1997 to 1998 as welfare reform minister in Tony Blair's government.

In October, Lord Field revealed he was terminally ill and had spent time in a hospice.

Responding to being made a Companion of Honour, he said: "Well, I'm very honoured to receive this acknowledgement. It's a terrific privilege considering the honour itself and what it represents.

"Following the work I've done, it's a lovely thought from which to conclude this year."

He joins former Chancellor George Osborne and former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Tebbit as a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, comprised of people deemed to have made a major contribution over time to the arts, science, medicine, or government.

Lord Field - a friend of late Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - quit Labour's group in Parliament in 2018, saying Jeremy Corbyn's leadership had become "a force for anti-Semitism in British politics".

He was made a non-affiliated, crossbench peer by the Conservative government in 2020, after campaigning in favour of Brexit.

Dame Sylvia Heal was the MP for Mid-Staffordshire from 1990 to 1992 and represented Halesowen and Rowley Regis between 1997 and 2010. She served as a deputy Speaker from 2000 to 2010.

Sir Robert Goodwill, Conservative MP for Scarborough and Whitby since 2005, was formerly a minister in the Home Office and education and agriculture departments.

And fellow Tory Sir Bill Wiggin, who has represented North Herefordshire since 2010, is a former shadow Welsh secretary who has served on numerous parliamentary committees.