Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the Answer of 9 September 2019 to Question 286332 on Honours: Gender and Ethnic Group, whether he is taking steps to monitor the (a) socio-economic class, (b) occupational background and (c) regional background of honours recipients; and if he will make a statement.

The Government is committed to ensuring that the honours system is fully representative of UK society. We plan to collect the socio-economic background of honours recipients for the first time in the forthcoming New Year’s Honours List 2020, and we plan to publish the data in due course.

We plan to record the region recipients are from. This is so we can assess whether any part of the UK is under-represented and target outreach activities appropriately. We also plan to collect data on gender, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation. There are no plans to formally capture the occupational background of honours recipients.