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Sir Keir Starmer could break a pledge not to hand out honours after he leaves Downing Street – three years after saying he would never do it. The Prime Minister twice declined to rule out the prospect of a resignation honours list when asked about it this week.

In 2023, Sir Keir slammed Rishi Sunak for allowing Boris Johnson to hand out peerages and knighthoods to close advisers and key supporters, and said such a list was “very hard to justify”. The prospect of a Starmer honours list could open the door to figures such as Morgan McSweeney, his former chief of staff, being given seats in the House of Lords. Mr McSweeney quit No 10 in February in the wake of the Lord Mandelson scandal, after taking responsibility for championing the disgraced peer for the role of UK ambassador to the US, despite his known friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the paedophile financier.

Sir Keir was asked about his position on a resignation honours list while speaking to reporters at the Nato summit in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday.

He responded: “We’ll look at that in the usual course of things.”

Pressed again on his previous remarks that he wouldn’t do a resignation honours list, and that such a thing was hard to justify, Sir Keir repeated the same response.

Tory Chairman Kevin Hollinrake, said: “Keir Starmer may be on his way out as Prime Minister, but he still can’t stop u-turning.

“Just three years ago, he promised there would be no resignation honours. Now, not content with stuffing the House of Lords full of cronies with dodgy CVs and cosy relationships with sex offenders, he is plotting even more appointments.

“After years of attacking previous Prime Ministers over their appointments, Starmer’s latest move is the final act of staggering hypocrisy from his premiership.”

Sir Keir’s views on resignation honours appear to have evolved over the past three years.

In 2023, when he was leader of the opposition, Sir Keir was very clear that he would not publish an honours list.

Asked by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether he would hand out resignation honours, he said: “No. There are other opportunities.

“Tony Blair didn’t have a resignation list. It’s very hard to justify… There are other avenues for that and I think it’s easier to be clean about this and simply say, no, I wouldn’t do it.”

He went on to criticise Mr Sunak for “waving through” Mr Johnson’s honours.

Traditionally, prime ministers can nominate people for honours after they have left Downing Street, although these have to be approved by their successor and the House of Lords Appointments Commission.

Sometimes they can be highly controversial.

Liz Truss published a resignation honours list despite only having been prime minister for seven weeks.

Mr Johnson’s list included two people who attended a party held by London Conservatives during lockdown in December 2020.

Some MPs he had intended to raise to the peerage, including Nadine Dorries, were removed by the Appointments Commission.

In 2016, Lord Cameron was criticised for using his list to reward “cronies”, many of whom had supported the failed Remain campaign.

Harold Wilson’s 1976 “lavender list” – named after the lavender notepaper on which his political secretary, Marcia Williams, jotted down the list of names – included businessmen such as Joseph Kagan, who was later convicted of fraud.

Even before Sir Keir’s resignation, some of his honours lists were controversial.

He gave a peerage to his former director of communications, Matthew Doyle, even though he had campaigned for a former Labour councillor after he was charged with possessing and distributing indecent images of children.

Sir Keir also gave Sue Gray a seat in the House of Lords after he removed her as his chief of staff.