Sadiq Khan and Emily Thornberry get prime gongs in New Year’s Honours checklist

Sadiq Khan said he was truly humbled to be awarded a knighthood after securing a historic third term as Mayor of London.

The son of a bus driver and the first Muslim mayor of the capital was honoured alongside the top Labour MP Emily Thornberry in the New Years Honours list. Sir Sadiq has been praised for rolling out free school meals for kids in the capital’s primary schools – a scheme that has now been made permanent.

Despite dividing opinion over the expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) in London, he won a record third term in office at the latest City Hall election in May. The former MP for Tooting said: “I couldn’t have dreamed 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 serve the city I love and I will continue to build the fairer, safer, greener and more prosperous London that all of the capital’s communities deserve.” Foreign Secretary David Lammy also congratulated him, saying: “Sadiq has delivered free school meals for London’s kids, cleaned up the city’s polluted air and built record numbers of council homes.

“I’m so proud that Britain is a place where you can go from being the son of a bus driver on a council estate to being the first Muslim in Cabinet, mayor of our great capital city and a knight of the realm.”

Former Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry, the MP for Islington South since 2005, has also been made a dame. In a surprise move after Labour’s landslide election win, she was the only member of Keir Starmer’s top team in opposition to be excluded from a position in the Cabinet.

But Dame Emily said she was both “surprised and honoured” over the gong. She said: “I think of my grandmothers, neither of whom were even allowed to work as married women, and think how utterly delighted they’d be to see this.

“My husband was knighted a few years ago and I never felt comfortable sharing his title, calling myself ‘Lady Nugee’, but Dame Emily is a name I’d be proud to go by.” She added that, on telling the drag queen Ella Vaday that she was going to be a dame, her friend, who was then appearing in a pantomime, replied: “Oh fantastic, and where are you on?”

Patricia Hewitt, a former Health Secretary under Tony Blair and is the chairwoman of NHS Norfolk and Waveney, is awarded a damehood for services to healthcare. Former Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, also received a knighthood alongside the ex-Tory schools minister Nick Gibb.

And ex-MP Ranil Jayawardena, who served as a Cabinet minister during Liz Truss’s brief 49-day stint in No10, was handed a knighthood.