Oona King to take up peerage in the House of Lords

Oona King, the former Bethnal Green and Bow MP, is set to be named as a peer in the House of Lords.

Ms King, who unsuccessfully ran to be the Labour Party’s nomination for the Mayor of London this year, is on a list of 53 nominees put forward to take up a seat in Parliament’s upper house.

She will take her place on the Labour benches alongside 10 new peers, including the broadcaster Dame Joan Bakewell.

The Conservative Party will have 27 new peers and the Liberal Democrats 15 and the new appointments will take the membership of the House of Lords up to nearly 750.

Ms King was the Bethnal Green and Bow MP from 1997 until 2005, when she lost her seat to Respect candidate George Galloway.

The coalition government is set to publish outline plans for future reform of the House of Lords later this year.