Tees Valley Mayor handed peerage in Boris Johnson's honours list
Ben Houchen has been handed a peerage.
Last updated 9th Jun 2023
Boris Johnson's long-awaited resignation honours list has been released, with the former prime minister nominating close allies for peerages and other gongs.
Mr Johnson handed peerages to former London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey and Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen, while giving staunch loyalists Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel a knighthood and a damehood respectively.
In a statement, Ben Houchen said;
“As a member of the House of Lords, I will be uniquely placed as being an elected Mayor with a seat in Parliament. The additional powers I will be given to make and amend laws are something no other Mayor in the country will have. I see this role not as a distraction, but as an incredible opportunity to fight and deliver even more for everyone across Teesside, Darlington, and Hartlepool.
"Despite what some like to say, Levelling Up is alive across the Tees Valley. We are now leading the way in UK Clean Growth and Net Zero technology, providing well paid jobs and developing energy security for the whole country from the Teesworks site. We have the Treasury in Darlington. We have a Prime Minister who lives just down the road who is committed to the North and my Levelling Up Agenda. We have our own international airport. And now I am being given the opportunity to sit amongst our law makers to talk up Teesside, and make sure we always get our fair slice of the cake.
"I also want to take this opportunity to reaffirm my commitment to my job as Mayor. I have had the honour of representing my home for the past six years and I feel an enormous responsibility to deliver for this area and I will continue to do this for years to come as Tees Valley Mayor.
"Today is recognition of Teesside, Darlington, and Hartlepool and shows that we matter on the national stage.”
Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland MP Simon Clarke will be given a Knighthood.
But Downing Street sought to distance Rishi Sunak from the list.
"He had no involvement or input into the approved list," the Prime Minister's press secretary said.
Ms Dorries earlier announced she was standing down as an MP "with immediate effect", triggering an early election battle in her Mid Bedfordshire constituency.
Middlesbrough Labour MP, Andy McDonald, has described the list as 'discredited' and 'dishonourable':
Houchen told the country he'd called his dog “Boris” and his elevation has long since been promised and guaranteed.
"They’re essentially putting two fingers up to the people of Teesside. But at some point, the conveyor belt of the Tories putting their unelected chums and their donors into our second chamber has to be brought to a shuddering halt. That day can’t come soon enough.
This arrogance and disregard of the concerns of the people of Teesside in this appointment, is a mirror image of Houchen’s own behaviour on Teesside. But to make this appointment now, when there is an inquiry into his conduct around Teesworks, just beggars belief.
It’s clear the Tories have seen the writing on the wall and are trying to protect their own and are giving their blue-eyed boy in the North, an escape route before the electorate delivers its verdict on them all.
The Lords, based on parentage and patronage is a grotesque feudal anachronism in a modern democracy. It’s time for the Lords to be abolished."