Tessa Jowell and Dawn Primarolo are expected to be nominated for peerages today after an unprecedented number of nominees were apparently blocked.
The new appointments are likely to include fewer than 30 Tories, about 11 Liberal Democrats and eight Labour figures, including Dame Tessa and Dame Dawn. Seven nominations have been vetoed this round, however, compared with ten over the past 15 years, according to The Daily Telegraph.
David Laws, who had to resign as a Lib Dem minister in 2010 after being caught up in the expenses scandal, was turned down for a peerage.
A Whitehall committee considers the “suitability” of candidates put forward by parties, judging nominees on the basis of financial propriety and other criteria, including whether they have been party donors.
A Downing Street spokesman said last night: “There is a robust and thorough vetting process — however, it is confidential.” No Labour nominees were blocked, a party source claimed.
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The Conservatives are looking to pack the Lords with their members because opposition peers at present have a majority in the upper chamber. The party composition of the Lords means the government faces the prospect of seeing crucial bills delayed.
David Cameron initially proposed introducing 100 new peers in this round of appointments, but was blocked by Whitehall mandarins.
With the Lords already the world’s largest legislative assembly in a democracy, today’s list will prompt renewed calls for reform.
Dame Tessa and Dame Dawn both stepped down from their Commons seats in May. Other Labour figures tipped for peerages are the former cabinet ministers Alistair Darling, David Blunkett and Peter Hain.
Dame Tessa, 67, was MP for Dulwich and West Norwood for 23 years and served in both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s cabinets. She is standing to win the Labour ticket for the London mayoral election next May.
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Dame Dawn 61, deputy speaker of the Commons in the last parliament, served as a minister during the previous Labour government.
The Conservative peerages are expected to include the prime minister’s deputy chief of staff, Kate Fall, and the advisers Simone Finn, an aide to Francis Maude, and Philippa Stroud, an adviser to the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith.
James O’Shaughnessy, who ran Mr Cameron’s policy unit in No 10, has also been tipped to join the Tory benches along with the lingerie tycoon Michelle Mone.
Lib Dems tipped to be ennobled include the former MPs Sir Menzies Campbell, Lynne Featherstone and Lorely Burt, and Nick Clegg’s chief of staff in the last parliament, Jonny Oates.