What is this country coming to?
The Order of the British Empire should be scrapped and replaced by a new Order of British Excellence while knighthoods and damehoods should be phased out within five years, a committee of MPs has said.
The Commons Public Administration Committee called for a major overhaul of the honours system, making it more transparent and ending the automatic award of honours to state servants.
The committee said that while there was still "solid" support for the honours system, it said they there was "unease" about the way it operated.
"The title 'Order of the British Empire' was now considered to be unacceptable, being thought to embody values that are no longer shared by many of the country's population," it said.
The committee said that replacing the Order of the British Empire with an Order of British Excellence would be "sensible adaptation" and rejected suggestions of "political correctness".
It said that the new order should, as far as possible, mirror the old one, with the same three levels of Member, Officer and Commander, retaining the old initials of MBE, OBE and CBE.
It said that the only other national honour - apart from those in the personal gift of the Queen - should be the Companion of Honour and that knighthoods and damehoods should be phased out over a five year period.
"Such titles are redolent of past preoccupation with rank and class, just as 'Empire' is redolent of an imperial history. Their continued use strikes a false note (which is why some recipients now prefer not to employ them)," the committee said in its report.
The committee said that "explicit criteria" should be published for each level of the award in the proposed new Order of British Excellence.
The committee said it had found little if any evidence of "serious corruption" in the operation of the honours system but it expressed "unease" at the award of honours to donors to political parties or for "political services".
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