Lord Austin said: “It’s a huge privilege and a great honour for a kid from Dudley to end up in the House of Lords and I’ll be using this platform to speak up for people in places like the Black Country.

“I’ll be campaigning for better opportunities for people in communities like ours who haven’t had a fair crack of the whip. I want to focus on education and foreign affairs and I’ll be speaking up for decency in politics, for mainstream, moderate values as I always have.”

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