What is the New Year Honours List? 

British honours are awarded to British Nationals and Citizens of the Commonwealth for exceptional achievement or service. A list is published every year. Nominations can be submitted by government departments or members of the public, and then a committee selects the members of the list from these. 

There are many different honours. Many are reserved for members of the military and emergency services. Civilians can be awarded (in order of ranking, from highest to lowest) Knight or Dame Commander of the British Empire (KBE/DBE), Commander of the British Empire (CBE), Officer of the British Empire (OBE), Member of the British Empire (MBE) and the British Empire Medal (BEM). Recipients of honours can then use their title of Sir or Dame, or put the initials corresponding to their honour after their name, although some, such as Labour Leader Keir Starmer (who has been knighted) prefer not to do this. 

In recent years, the New Year's Honours list has been controversial because of the references to the British Empire, with many saying it glorified the UK’s colonial history. In 2003 poet Benjamin Zephaniah refused his OBE because he is ‘profoundly anti-empire'. He explained: ‘I get angry when I hear that word "empire"; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised.’ Organisers say there is no plan to remove the words ‘British Empire’ from the system, despite the strong argument for doing so. 

Who received an honour this year? 

Among those to be given an Honour this year were Formula 1 driver Sir Lewis Hamilton, who has been knighted. In October he broke the all-time record number of wins when he surpassed legend Michael Schumacher’s 91 wins. 15% of the list is people who work in the public sector, such as doctors, nurses and teachers, reflecting the heroes of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Among these was Professor Farah Bhatti, the first female consultant cardiac surgeon in Wales, who received an OBE for her services in equality, diversity and inclusion in the NHS. The oldest person to receive an honour was Anne Baker, 106, who received an MBE for fundraising for the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children). She has been holding an annual garden party to fundraise for over 50 years. At the other end of the spectrum, the youth mayor of Oldham, Samah Khahil, 20, was the youngest to receive an honour. She was recognised for her work to empower young people with a BEM. The diversity of honours is recorded and this year women represented 49%, 14.2% are from a black, Asian or ethnic minority background, 6.9% have a disability 4% identified as being LGBTQ+.