Hereditary peers are for the chop, but life peers still have their uses. Last October the process of ennoblement allowed Keir Starmer to appoint a minister of state for investment in rapid preparation for his investment summit of that month. Finding no-one on the green benches who took his fancy, he turned to Poppy Gustafsson, a chartered accountant who went on to co-found the cyber security firm Darktrace, for which she served as chief financial officer followed by chief executive until it was sold to a private equity firm last year. In order to take up her government post she was hastily installed in the Lords as Baroness Gustafsson of Chesterton in the City of Cambridge.
Trouble is that the House of Lords Appointments Commission is not happy.
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