Lord Jones on David Cameron's resignation honours list

David Cameron should thank those he wants to reward for political service with a "gong" rather than a peerage, says Lord Jones of Birmingham.

The former CBI director general, who served as a trade minister in Gordon Brown's government, said :"That's what CBEs, maybe knighthoods and damehoods, MBEs, OBEs, that's what they're for."

"Peerages, as I see it, is about taking part in the future ... you're going to take part in the legislature of the nation," the cross-bench peer, better known as Digby Jones, told BBC Radio 4's World of One.

But he defended the decision to make Shami Chakrabarti a peer, as her knowledge of human rights would allow her to make a "great contribution" in the House of Lords.