Boris Johnson loyalists Michael Fabricant and Sir Bill Cash rewarded in resignation honours

Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant is knighted for his political and public service.

And veteran MP Sir Bill Cash, who represents Stone, is promoted to the Order of the Companions of Honour.

Both were Johnson loyalists and are among a group chosen as part of a convention in which former prime ministers are able to issue honours. Mr Johnson has handed peerages to former London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey and Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen. And former cabinet ministers Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel have been given a knighthood and a damehood respectively.

Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries and Sir Alok Sharma, president of the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, were absent from the list, following reports the Government cut them at the 11th hour to swerve potentially damaging by-elections in their seats.

But Ms Dorries earlier announced she was standing down as an MP “with immediate effect”, triggering an early election battle in her Mid Bedfordshire constituency. She added: “It has been an honour to serve as the MP for such a wonderful constituency but it is now time for someone younger to take the reins.” Ms Dorries increased her majority in Mid Bedfordshire from 20,983 in 2017 to 24,664 in 2019, with a swing of 2.4 per cent from Labour to the Conservatives.

Labour would need a swing of at least 19.1 per cent to take the seat of Mid Bedfordshire from the Conservatives – the sort of swing the party has not achieved in a by-election since 1996.Ms Dorries blamed her workload for quitting as a Tory MP and appeared to confirm she was not on Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list. The former culture secretary also insisted she was “not angry”.

“The bottom line is really, I’m doing my own show on TalkTV and I write a column in the Daily Mail every Tuesday, which takes a lot more time than I ever thought it would do,” she said.