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."

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

The former MP - 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.

Joining Lord Field is Sir Paul Nurse, a Nobel Prize-winning geneticist, who has also become one of the 65 members of the Order of the Companions of Honour,

Sir Paul, who is director of the biomedical research organisation the Francis Crick Institute, said the honour was a "recognition of the importance" of science.

The Covid pandemic had catapulted science into the very unusual situation of leading the news bulletins for almost two years, he said.

Over the pandemic, the research institute helped with testing in north London, advised the government on the virus, set up a vaccination centre, and will publish papers on effectiveness of jabs in producing antibodies in the coming year.

Sir Paul - who was knighted in 1999 - said Covid had shown that scientists had to work in different ways to communicate with the public and politicians about issues of uncertainty.

"Science isn't always chiselled in stone," he said. "But trying to explain to the public and politicians that the knowledge we have is tentative, so we cannot be sure of quite what we can recommend - as we get more data we will be able to - is a subtle point that is crucial in building up trust."

In other political honours, former deputy Speaker Sylvia Heal becomes a dame. She 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 is given a knighthood. He has been Conservative MP for Scarborough and Whitby since 2005 and was formerly a minister in the Home Office and education and agriculture departments.

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