Critics have dubbed it a ‘retirement home’ for those who have failed elsewhere – and the House of Lords grew in size again today when Sue Gray officially took her seat.
The former civil servant formally entered the unelected chamber just four months after she was forced out as Sir Keir Starmer‘s chief of staff in Downing Street.
Taking the title Baroness Gray of Tottenham, the 67-year-old wore the traditional scarlet and ermine robes for her short introduction ceremony.
She swore an oath of allegiance to the King and was supported by ex-Whitehall chief Lord O’Donnell, a crossbench peer, and her fellow Labour peer Baroness Harman.
Baroness Gray lost her role as the Prime Minister’s top aide following a bitter No10 power struggle last year in the wake of Labour’s general election victory.
She lasted only three months in Downing Street with her time at the centre of Sir Keir’s Government marked by regular reports of tensions with other No10 staff.
Baroness Gray was also damaged when it was leaked that she was earning more than the PM’s salary of £166,786.
She was replaced as Sir Keir’s chief of staff in October by Morgan McSweeney, the apparent victor of a No10 feud, as the PM scrambled to ‘reset’ his ailing premiership.
Prior to joining Sir Keir’s Labour team, Baroness Gray had been a long-serving civil servant and led the ‘Partygate‘ investigation into Covid rule-breaking in Whitehall.
She was introduced to the Lords as Baroness Gray of Tottenham in a nod to the north London area where her Irish immigrant parents settled in the early 1950s.
Some have also quipped her choice of title is a swipe at Arsenal-supporting Sir Keir.
Baroness Gray was among 30 new Labour peers named by the PM in December, despite Sir Keir having previously promised to abolish the Lords.
Six appointments from the Tories, including Liz Truss’s former deputy PM Dame Therese Coffey, and two from the Liberal Democrats were also confirmed.
Baroness Gray went from an influential but little-known arbiter of conduct in Government to a household name when she took on the ‘Partygate’ probe in 2021.
She stepped in to lead the investigation after then-cabinet secretary Simon Case, her boss, recused himself following claims his own office held a lockdown-busting event.
Civil service impartiality was later thrown into question following her shock move to quit the Cabinet Office to join Labour as Sir Keir’s chief of staff.
After weeks of negative briefings against her following Labour’s general election victory las summer, Baroness Gray announced her resignation in October.
She cited concerns that she was ‘becoming a distraction’ to the work of Government.
Baroness Gray had been due to take up a newly-created role as ‘envoy to the nations and regions’ following a short break from Government.
But Downing Street announced a month after her departure as Sir Keir’s chief of staff that she had decided not to take up the envoy job.
She was among 30 Labour figures and Starmer loyalists to be appointed to the Lords at the end of last year.
A Labour source said at the time that the Conservatives had created an ‘imbalance’ in the Lords that needed to be ‘corrected’.
Some 17 of the new Labour peers are women after the party pledged reform of the upper chamber including by redressing its gender imbalance.
The nominations boost Sir Keir’s numbers in the Lords, which sat at 187 Labour peers compared to 273 from the Conservatives.
The Lords is one of the most bloated legislative bodies in the world and currently has more than 800 members.
Only China’s People Congress is bigger in size.
