Gareth Southgate among 1,200 awarded New Year honours

Former England football manager Gareth Southgate, the actor Stephen Fry and London’s mayor Sadiq Khan have all been knighted in the UK’s New Year honours list.

Recipients of the 1,200-plus awards also include the author Jacqueline Wilson, actor Carey Mulligan and former Post Office sub-postmasters who campaigned for justice following the Horizon IT scandal.

Southgate managed the England men’s team for eight years and led it to the finals of the Euro 2024 competition in July, where it lost 2-1 to Spain. He resigned shortly afterwards. The former Premiership and England player has been knighted for services to association football, having also taken the Three Lions to the final of Euro 2020 and the semi-final of the 2018 World Cup.

Fry, known for hosting the TV quiz show QI and for his roles in the BBC comedy series Blackadder, has been recognised for services to mental health awareness, the environment and to charity. He is president of mental health charity Mind and vice-president of Flora & Fauna International.

He said it was “wonderful” to see charities for which he worked gain recognition.

Khan, a former Labour MP, has been mayor of London since 2016 having won three elections to lead Britain’s capital.

“I couldn’t have dreamt when growing up on a council estate in south London that I would one day be mayor of London, it’s the honour of my life to service the city I love,” he said of the honour, first revealed by the Financial Times in early December.

Nominations for New Year honours can be made by any member of the public. The Cabinet Office said 49 per cent of all recipients of honours this year have been women while 12 per cent come from ethnic minorities.

Also among the awards are damehoods for Ruth Cairnie, chair of aerospace group Babcock International, Pat Hewitt, former Labour health secretary, and Emily Thornberry, the Labour MP who chairs the foreign affairs select committee.

Noel Quinn, former chief executive of HSBC bank, Andy Street, former John Lewis boss and ex-Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, and Andrew Haines, chief executive of Network Rail, have each been awarded knighthoods.

Others include Edward Braham, chair of asset manager M&G, Warren East, former chief of Rolls-Royce and chip designer ARM, and former Tory schools minister Nick Gibb.

Ken McCallum, director-general of spy agency MI5, becomes a Knight Commander of the Order of Bath, while Tamara Finkelstein, permanent secretary at the environment department, becomes a Dame Commander.

Sir Keir Starmer, prime minister, said the list celebrates many “unsung heroes” who do extraordinary things for their communities: “I thank them for their incredible contribution.”

Honours have come for some of those who fought for hundreds of sub-postmasters who were wrongly convicted on the basis of faulty software. Former sub-postmasters Lee Castleton, Jo Hamilton, Christopher Head and Seema Misra have been appointed Officers of the Order of the British Empire (OBEs) for services to justice over the Horizon IT scandal.

Team GB athletes who competed in this year’s Paris Olympics have been recognised, after winning 65 medals, as have been members of Team ParalympicsGB who amassed 124.

Runner Keely Hodginkson is appointed MBE after winning the 800 metres, Britain’s only gold on the track. Mountain biker Tom Pidcock and swimmer Duncan Scott have been awarded OBEs after also taking gold.

Paralympian Hannah Cockroft becomes a CBE after winning the 100 metres and 800 metres.

Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, author of The Remains of the Day and Klara and the Sun, becomes a Companion of Honour for services to literature, while author Robert Harris is appointed CBE.

Jacqueline Wilson, the writer behind the Tracy Beaker series, receives the rare recognition of becoming a Dame Grand Cross (GBE) for services to literature, while actress Carey Mulligan and TV presenter Alan Titchmarsh are both appointed CBEs.

Business leaders including David Bond, former chief executive of Sheffield Forgemasters, and John Flint, the ex-HSBC boss and chief executive of the state investment group National Wealth Fund also become CBEs.

Leena Nair, chief executive of fashion house Chanel, is appointed CBE for services to retail and the consumer sector, as is Don Robert, chair of the London Stock Exchange.

Other CBEs have been awarded to Louis Taylor, chief executive of the state-owned British Business Bank, and Chris Stark, head of the energy department’s 2030 “Mission Control”.

OBEs have been granted to Miles Celic, chief executive of lobbying group TheCityUK, Tarsem Dhaliwal, chief executive of Iceland Foods, Simon Murphy, former chief of Battersea Power Station Development Company and Alan Belfield, former chair of construction group Arup.

Jim Pickard, Deputy Political Editor