Honours system is changing to recognise more working class heroes

The drive to be more representative applies to a geographical spread, as the BBC’s research last year showed at New Year 2025 the north of England only accounted for 6% of higher award winners, despite having 23% of the UK’s population.

The most recent evidence, based on the 2026 Birthday honours, shows the figure for higher awards in the north of England has more than doubled to 13%.

But it’s still significantly below the share of population – and Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and most English regions are under-represented.

That’s because of the domination of London and the south east of England, which in these most recent awards accounted for 56% of higher honours, while having 27% of the UK’s population.

Lawrence says that his appointment to the committee was helped by not being from the capital or the south east.

In the New Year 2026 awards:

There has been a push to widen the pool of nominations. That includes using different networks to find people, such as social media and LinkedIn rather than the contacts of the Lord Lieutenants, the King’s local representatives.

The need for more nominations for people with disabilities has also been highlighted – as the current proportion of honours is still substantially below the 22% share of the population.

The past year has seen some honours blindspots tackled. The traditionally working class, northern sport of rugby league had never had a representative knighted in 130 years, prompting claims of snobbery.

That changed last summer with a knighthood for Sir Billy Boston.