Working-class Britons still underrepresented in top honours, BBC finds
Only 4% of higher New Year Honours went to working-class Britons, while more than 60% went to London and the South East. The figures expose how far the top tier still leans toward the same places and social groups.
Only 4% of higher New Year Honours went to people from working-class backgrounds, and more than 60% went to recipients in London and the South East. The BBC analysis of Cabinet Office data also found that just 6% of higher awards went to people in the north of England, leaving the top of the honours system heavily tilted toward the country’s most privileged regions and backgrounds.
The findings matter most at the upper end of the system, where awards such as CBEs sit alongside the best-known MBEs and OBEs. Those honours are meant to recognise service, merit or bravery, yet the latest figures show that access to the highest tier remains sharply uneven. The distribution suggests that widening the honours list has not fully broken the long-running pattern that concentrates recognition in the capital and its commuter belt.
The Cabinet Office says it is working to make the system more diverse and better reflect the UK, using outreach to widen participation. Business leader Moni Mannings has been appointed as independent chair of a new diversity and outreach committee created to make the honours system more inclusive and reach a wider range of communities.
The modern honours system dates to 1917, when the Order of the British Empire was created. It was reformed again in 1993 by then prime minister John Major, with the aim of making it more open, according to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse’s examination of how the system operates. Even with those changes, criticism has persisted over whether honours still favour the same establishment networks and whether the process has become broad in image without becoming fully democratic in practice.
Under the constitutional settlement, the Sovereign retains the sole right of conferring titles of honour in the UK, acting as the “fountain of honour”. The Royal Family says those awards are given to deserving people from all walks of life in public recognition of their merit, service or bravery, but the latest breakdown shows that the path to the top awards still runs disproportionately through London and the South East, not through the north of England or working-class communities.
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