In 1993 two separate reviews reported on the British honours system. The first, under prime minister John Major, reported in March and focused on civilian awards. The second was started in March, at Major's suggestion, and carried out by the Ministry of Defence. Major's review abolished the minimum rank requirements for certain civilian awards when made to military personnel and ended the practice of making awards purely on the basis of the recipient holding a certain appointment in the public or private sector (with the exception of High Court judges who were still to automatically become knights or dames). Major's review also ended the award of the British Empire Medal (BEM) and Imperial Service Order (ISO), compensated for by increasing the number of awards made to the Order of the British Empire. As a means of increasing the proportion of awards made to community figures and the voluntary sector, he introduced direct nominations from the general public.

The outcome of the military review was reported by Minister of Defence Malcolm Rifkind in October 1993. It was largely focused on gallantry awards. The basic structure of the awards was retained but all distinctions of rank were removed, with officers and other ranks to receive the same awards for the same actions. Generally the officer-level awards were retained (and opened to all ranks) and the other ranks award abolished. A new Conspicuous Gallantry Cross was created as the second-level operational gallantry award for all ranks, as the previous officer-level award (the Distinguished Service Order) was to henceforth be awarded for leadership and not gallantry. The review considered creating a medal for the mention in despatches award but decided against this, though the existing insignia, an oak leaf, was upgraded to silver (from bronze). The Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air, which had been awarded for both gallantry and meritorious conduct, was abolished and replaced with new medals: the Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service, which awarded meritorious conduct in all theatres, and the Queen's Commendation for Bravery in the Air for non-operational gallantry. The award of the Queen's Commendation for Brave Conduct was ended and replaced with the Queen's Commendation for Bravery for other non-operational gallantry.

Background The Conservative Party leader John Major was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1990 to 1997. He was keen to move towards a classless society and, as part of this, carried out a review of the British honours system. The focus of the honours system had historically been civil servants, rewarded for performing their job roles. Labour Party prime minister Harold Wilson had attempted to broaden the honours lists in the 1960s and 1970s to include more celebrity figures but this had faced opposition and his 1976 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours led to scandal. Major's predecessor as Conservative Party leader and prime minister, Margaret Thatcher had directed the civil service to increase the award of honours to those from the private and voluntary sectors but most awards still went to those on the public payroll. Those administering the system told Thatcher it would be hard to achieve her aims without reform of the system and she lacked the political will to carry this out. She did reintroduce honours for political service, phased out by Wilson, as rewards for her party members, and these rose to make up around 20% of the honours lists. The honours system came under attack during the 1980s, with works by Labour Research (1983), journalist Michael De-la-Noy (1985) and John Walker (1986) criticising honours made by Thatcher to party donors. De-la-Noy considered the honours system socially divisive and Walker thought it lacked transparency, making it hard to judge if awards were made corruptly. An article in The Economist in 1987 stated that only those honours given to "ordinary people who give public service" were really defensible and argued for the abolition of those award for political and civil service.

Prior to Major's review the system had remained largely unchanged for 70 years. Many honours, civil and military, were restricted to recipients of certain rank. In the military officers received gallantry awards described as crosses (for example the Air Force Cross) while the other ranks received medals (for example the Air Force Medal). The only gallantry medal without distinction to rank was the highest, the Victoria Cross. This carried across to the civilian awards with other ranks generally not entitled to appointment to orders such as the Order of the British Empire, instead receiving the associated, but separate and lower-ranking, British Empire Medal (BEM).

Major's review was carried out in conjunction with Sir Robin Butler, the Head of the Home Civil Service, from 1992. It focused on the civilian honours and reported in March 1993. Major made a recommendation that a similar review be completed into military awards with a view to making them "rankless". The Ministry of Defence started a joint services (army, navy and air force) review in March 1993. This reported later that year; on 17 October, Secretary of State for Defence Malcolm Rifkind announced that the distinction between officers and other ranks in the issuing of gallantry awards would be abolished.

Civil honours

Major's review led to several significant changes in honours awarded. It concluded that honours should be awarded only for merit, exceptional achievement or exceptional service and ordered the end of automatic awards to those holding particular posts in the public or private sector. Under this order, for example, the automatic appointment of the Lord Mayor of London as a knight or dame grand cross of the Order of the British Empire ceased. Major permitted only one exception: High Court judges continued to be appointed knights bachelor or dames commander of the Order of the British Empire upon appointment. Major's review abolished the practice that the level of the honour awarded was in line with an individual's social or professional status; henceforth the level of honour awarded should be in line with the level of achievement and merit displayed.

Major also abolished the rank requirement for military personnel to receive appointments to the Order of the British Empire. The requirements were retained by some Commonwealth realms which use the British honours system, though the number of such awards is proportionally very low. Major considered that the link between the BEM and the order had become "increasingly tenuous" and halted the issue of the medal. Candidates who would have previously been recommended for the BEM would receive appointments as members or officers of the Order of the British Empire instead. Existing holders of the BEM were unaffected and Major increased the number of MBE appointments to make up for the abolition of the medal. Recipients of the BEM, unlike those of the order, did not receive an investiture from a member of the royal family. To accommodate the increased number of appointments to the order Elizabeth II agreed to increase the number of investiture ceremonies held each year. Appointees were also given the option of attending a ceremony locally, presided over by their Lord-Lieutenant. Hugo Vickers, writing in 1994, was critical of the abolition of the BEM as he considered it would reduce the number of honours available to members of the armed forces.

Major ended appointments to the Imperial Service Order (ISO), which had a low public profile and was awarded mainly to middle and upper-ranking civil servants. Candidates who would previously have been recommended for this order would instead be nominated to appointment as officers of the Order of the British Empire. The associated Imperial Service Medal, historically awarded only to working-class civil servants, was retained as a long service award for all civil servants. Such measures reflected the recent removal of the distinction between blue- and white-collar roles in the civil service.

Major decided that the honours system should allow for more candidates from the voluntary sector and be more diverse. He considered that minorities were under-represented on the honours lists, which were drawn up by government departments. Major hoped to rebalance them by introducing direct nomination by members of the public. He did not propose to change the practice of political nominations, which led to criticism in the House of Commons from the leaders of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties.

Under the old system numbers of awards were determined every five years. Major brought forward the next review to summer 1993 and requested that it consider increasing awards for the voluntary sector and the general public and adjust the proportion of awards made to civil servants, diplomats and military personnel to reflect their changed role and size in recent years. Major intended that the majority of appointments now made should be as members of the Order of the British Empire.

Effects and later changes

The first effects of the reform were made in time for the 1993 Birthday Honours. Major's reforms successfully increased the number and proportion of candidates from community, voluntary and local services who, by 2000, formed a majority of appointments to the Order of the British Empire. The nomination system implemented by Major remains the basis for the modern system, a mix of nominations made by government departments, public bodies and the general public. Historian Tobias Harper, writing in 2020, considered Major's reforms the most significant change to the honours system since the 1920s.

The withdrawal of the BEM was criticised by some deputy lieutenants as disenfranchising part of the community, who might not be eligible for higher honours. Nominations for the civilian medal were resumed by prime minister David Cameron in 2011, though the rank distinction for military awards was not re-introduced and military awards of the BEM were not resumed.

Major did not initially change the general policy of not honouring pop and rock musicians (honours for cultural achievement were much more likely to go to ballerinas, composers and high-brow writers). Neil and Tim Finn of Crowded House were made OBE in the 1993 Birthday Honours, but this was still described as "surreal" in Q magazine. After Tony Blair became Labour leader, a number of pop and rock musicians were honoured in 1995 and 1996. This included Cliff Richard who was knighted in the 1995 Birthday Honours, though his citation noted it was for "services to music and charitable service", rather than his music work alone. When Paul McCartney was knighted in the 1997 New Year Honours it was solely for "services to music". McCartney's knighthood was dismissed as "sentimental populism" by The Guardian in an editorial which suggested that "the real test of daring would have been to award gongs to Oasis".

After the change of government in 1997, which brought into power people much more attuned to pop and rock music, the numbers of people from these fields being honoured steadily increased and, although no members of Oasis have yet been honoured, this trend has accelerated over time, with MBEs eventually being given to grime pioneers Wiley and Dizzee Rascal.