FORMER South Dorset MP Jim Knight will make a dramatic return to parliament after being made a life peer.

Weeks after he lost his seat in the House of Commons to Conservative Richard Drax, he was named by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the dissolution honours list.

The former employment minister, who will become Lord Knight, said: “It is a huge honour to be chosen by Gordon Brown to go to the Lords.

“When I lost my seat I was particularly concerned that Dorset had lost its only Labour voice in parliament and I’m delighted to be able to provide that in a new role.”

Mr Drax won the South Dorset constituency in the general election, earlier this month, with a landslide 7,443 majority, one of the largest Tory swings in the country.

Mr Knight said: “I do not want to get in the way of Richard Drax doing his job as the local MP. He won fair and square and I will not set up a rival office dealing with casework and helping individuals. That is the MP’s job.

“I will campaign on issues locally and nationally. I will use my new status to try to bring people together to improve things, and highlight problems as I see them in Dorset.

“I will want to continue to hear from people about these wider issues to inform my work.”

Lord Knight has also pledged to continue campaigning on reform of the Lords.

He said: “I strongly believe that members of the second chamber should be 100 per cent elected. The Lords themselves are seen as a block to this.

“I will join the Lords unashamedly as someone wanting to continue to campaign and vote for a fully democratic Parliament.”

Mr Drax said: “I wish him luck in his new position in the upper house.”