Keir Starmer nominates Chief Executive of the Board of Deputies for life peerage

Sir Keir Starmer has nominated the Chief Executive of the Board of Deputies for a life peerage.

Gillian Merron, who was appointed to her communal role in 2014, will take up her position in the House of Lords in the New Year.

The announcement from Downing Street includes 16 peerages, including seven nominations from Boris Johnson and five from the Labour leader. 

Merron, who was a Labour MP for Lincoln from 1997-2010, said she is “deeply honoured to have been appointed. I have made it my life’s work to serve the country in whatever ways I can, whether in the trade unions, as MP for Lincoln, as a Government Minister and now alongside the outstanding lay and professional team at the Board of Deputies. I am very much looking forward to taking my place in the House of Lords.”

Marie van der Zyl, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: “At the Board of Deputies, we are all absolutely delighted at the announcement that our Chief Executive Gillian Merron is to be made a peer. After decades of public service, in the trade union movement, as MP for Lincoln, as a Government Minister, and most recently as our much loved and highly respected chief executive, I can think of nobody more deserving of such an accolade. This is a great appointment which will be of great service to the whole country and we could not be prouder. Mazal Tov Gillian!”