Edinburgh Conservative councillor gets peerage in David Cameron’s honours list

City of Edinburgh councillor Mark MacInnes CBE has been given a peerage in David Cameron’s resignations honours list.

He is one of only two councillors on the list, which is mostly made up of senior Conservative Party figures and former staff of David Cameron’s household.

As well as being a councillor for Edinburgh’s Meadows/Morningside ward, MacInnes is director of the Scottish Conservatives.

He was awarded a CBE for services to politics in the New Year Honours list earlier this year.

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MacInnes told the Edinburgh Reporter: “It is an enormous honour and overwhelming responsibility.

“I was intending to stand down from council next year in any case and will now look forward to representing people somewhere else.

“I will do my very best to represent Scotland and Edinburgh to scrutinise legislation and bring what knowledge I have from a Scottish perspective and also with experience of working in local government to the House of Lords.”

While not in favour of the Honours system in general, City of Edinburgh Council leader Andrew Burns passed on his congratulations.

He told the Edinburgh Reporter: “I take the old-fashioned, democratic view that the second chamber of the United Kingdom should be elected by the people and I am not in favour of the discretionary Honours system.

“That said, at a personal level, I do want to pass on my congratulations to Mark on being awarded a peerage.

“I’ve been on the council, at the same time as Mark, for over a decade – and I’ve no doubt that he’ll take an effective approach to robustly scrutinising legislation in the House of Lords.”

Secretary of State for Scotland David Mundell tweeted: "Many congratulations to @Morningsidemark on peerage. Due recognition of huge contribution to #indyref campaign and revival of @ScotTories".

David Cameron’s resignations honours nominations have been criticised for rewarding party donors and those who supported the Remain campaign in the EU referendum.

Jeremy Corbyn’s one nomination for a peerage, human rights activist Shami Chakrabarti, has been controversial, after the human rights lawyer recently gave the Labour Party a clean bill of health in an enquiry into anti-Semitism in the party.