Honours Forfeiture Committee

Honours Forfeiture Committee

Type	UK Cabinet Office sub-committee
Legal status	ad hoc
Chair	Head of the Home Civil Service

The Honours Forfeiture Committee is an ad hoc committee convened under the United Kingdom Cabinet Office, which considers cases referred to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom where an individual’s actions subsequent to their being awarded a British honour raises the question of whether they should be allowed to continue to be a holder. Recommendations are made to the Monarch of the United Kingdom, who has the sole authority to rescind an honour.

Operations

The committee is only convened at the request of the Prime Minister, under the chairmanship of the Head of the Home Civil Service.

The committee conducts its business by correspondence, and only meets to confer about a decision where the probability is to rescind an honour. The committee only considers cases where an individual who has been honoured is judged to have brought the honours system into disrepute, including issues covering someone who:

• has been found guilty by the courts of a criminal offence and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of three months or more
• has been censured, struck off, etc. by the relevant professional or other regulatory authority for action or inaction which was directly relevant to the granting of the honours.

If there is other compelling evidence that an individual has brought the honours system into disrepute, then it is open to the committee to consider such cases as well. The committee also considers matters of general policy regarding forfeiture.

In 2009, Gordon Brown confirmed that the process remains as set out in 1994 by the then Prime Minister John Major in a written answer to the House of Commons:

The statutes of most orders of knighthood and the royal warrants of decorations and medals include provision for the Queen to "cancel and annul" appointments and awards. Cancellation is considered in cases where retention of the appointment or award would bring the honours system into disrepute. There are no set guidelines for cancellations, which are considered on a case-by-case basis. Since 1979, the London Gazette has published details of cancellations of 15 appointments and awards—three knighthoods, one CBE, five OBEs, four MBEs and two BEMs.

— John Major, House of Commons Hansard, 2 December 1994, vol 250 c923W

All decisions made by the committee are submitted to the Monarch through the Office of the Prime Minister. The subjects discussed by the Committee remain confidential at all times, until confirmed by the Monarch.

Decisions on forfeiture are published in the London Gazette.

Composition

The Committee comprises (as of March 2010):

• Head of the Home Civil Service (Chair): Sir Bob Kerslake
• Cabinet Secretary: Sir Jeremy Heywood
• Permanent Secretary, Home Office: Dame Helen Ghosh
• Permanent Secretary, Scottish Executive: Sir Peter Housden
• Treasury Solicitor and HM Procurator General: Sir Paul Jenkins, QC
• (Secretary) Head of Honours and Appointments Secretariat, Cabinet Office: Denis Brennan, CVO

Honours recommended for revocation by the committee

Further information: List of revocations of appointments to orders and awarded decorations and medals of the United Kingdom

• Anthony Blunt: Knighthood, 1979
• Roger Casement: Knighthood, CMG, August 1916
• Jean Else: Dame, 2009
• Fred Goodwin: Knighthood, January 2012
• Naseem Hamed: MBE, 2007
• Jack Lyons: Knighthood, CBE
• Lester Piggott: OBE, 1987

See also

• Honours Committee
• Cash for Honours

External links

• Honours Forfeiture Committee at direct.gov.uk