Pros and cons of the British honours system

The former head of the Post Office has succumbed to public pressure and handed back her CBE over her part in the Horizon IT scandal. 

Paula Vennells, who was chief executive of the Post Office between 2012 and 2019, and before that a senior executive, oversaw the conviction of hundreds of falsely accused sub-postmasters for fraud and led the defence of the flawed Fujitsu-designed IT system that caused the scandal.

Vennells was awarded a CBE in 2019 for "services to the Post Office and charity", but after an ITV drama "thrust the scandal into the spotlight", a petition demanding she return her honour was signed by 1.2 million people, said The Independent. She "bowed" to the "intense" pressure and said she would return her CBE "with immediate effect".

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The petition has turned the spotlight again onto how honours recipients are chosen, a system that has long been controversial. Critics argue that it has become "essentially automated", said The Times, and honours no longer recognise "lifetimes of extraordinary work or individual achievements" but have become "baubles doled out unthinkingly for time served".

Pro: credit for the unsung

The system provides recognition and clout for people who have made a significant contribution in their respective fields, and are "important tools for recognising outstanding achievers and unsung heroes", said the Financial Times. “They are the ones who have selflessly worked to make their communities better,” argued an editorial in the Oxford Mail, and who have “spent their time, energy and enthusiasm for the benefit of others”.

And “the fact that an award has, at some point, been given to an unsuitable person does not justify its total abolishment”, said Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton on The Conversation.

Con: cronyism allegations

Critics have long been suspicious of the criteria used for selection. The political honours system offers peerages, knighthoods and damehoods to MPs and party grandees, including donors, said a leader in The Guardian, and many of these awards are “no more and no less than corrupt patronage”.

“Charges of cronyism” have been levelled at recommendations of prime ministers, agreed Michael Collins, writing for The Critic. “Major party donors do well, as do those that have already received generous remunerations for their role in public office.”

This "severely undermines the system and erodes public goodwill", added the FT, and it seems "obviously best practice" to install a system where honours cannot be handed out to politicians while in office. However, "wholesale reform" of the system is unlikely, given that honours are a "grubby mainstay of political patronage in the UK", the paper said.

Pro: motivation for good

Supporters argue that the honours system can inspire and motivate people to engage in charitable and philanthropic work, which benefits society at large.

“For as long as it recognises the selflessness of people who work to make the world around them a better place, it’s worth treasuring,” wrote The Yorkshire Post columnist Andrew Vine. And “by doing that, the honours can inspire more people to get involved, to volunteer, make donations or offer support in whatever way they can”.

Con: link to Empire

Some feel uncomfortable because the UK honours system has its roots in the British Empire. The first black footballer to play for Liverpool, Howard Gayle, who went on to campaign against racism in the game, turned down an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) because he felt it would be “a betrayal” to Africans who suffered at the hands of the British Empire, reported BBC News.

When the late poet Benjamin Zephaniah rejected an OBE in 2003, he wrote that “it reminds me of slavery, it reminds me of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised”.

Pro: cost effective

Then there is the question of expense. Honours are a “very cost-effective” way to honour people, wrote Henry Hill for UnHerd. “There’s no lump sum, no annual retainer,” he added, “just a bit of metal, perhaps a sash, a few letters after your name, and an opportunity to take part in a fancy ceremony”.

However, BuzzFeed reported in 2016 that the honours system costs the UK more than £1m a year, and the sum “comes out of public funds”.

Con: cancel culture

Sometimes awards are stripped from people and the reasons are not always made public, which has caused concern and suspicion. In 2020, nine people had honours revoked, reported The Times, in a process that was “shrouded in secrecy”.

This means a “clandestine cancel culture” could be “operating behind the scenes” of the honours system, wrote Collins for The Critic.