Britain should scrap its arcane system of honoring citizens with knighthoods, a parliamentary committee said Tuesday.
Racial diversity should be better reflected in the awards and the inflammatory word “Empire” should be dropped from honors such as Order of the British Empire (OBE), the Public Administration Committee said in a report.
“The current system is terribly secretive ... It’s over-complicated and it’s certainly out of date,” committee member Anne Campbell, from Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labor Party, told BBC radio.
“We need a system that really accords more with the modern day,” she added.
Obscure honors such as “Orders of the Bath” should be scrapped, and the OBE should become the Order of British Excellence, said the report.
“Consideration should be given to ... a decrease in awards of knighthoods and damehoods, with the objective of phasing out the awards of knighthoods within five years,” it added.
Last month, former England soccer midfielder Trevor Brooking received a knighthood, while Ukrainian-born Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal received an honorary knighthood.
A second report into transparency within the system is due later this week, and the government has two months to decide its response.
Campbell said gestures like Prime Minister Tony Blair awarding honors to the entire England rugby team after they won last year’s World Cup had been unhelpful.
“That sort of thing we don’t think does the honors very many favors,” she said.
