A former deputy governor at the Bank of England, Paul Tucker has been given a knighthood for his services to banking in the New Year's Honours list.

Sir Paul was in the race to become the head of the central bank but the decision went in favour of Canadian Mark Carney, who took over the institution when Mervyn King stepped down as the the governor of the Bank of England. He left the bank to take a senior fellowship at Harvard after more than 30 years at the key institution.

Sir Paul faced allegations that he might be involved in alleged manipulation of the benchmark Libor interbank lending rate earlier in the year. Former Barclays boss, Bob Diamond had published details that showed contentious phone-call with him made in 2008 but Sir Paul strongly denied the allegations.

Sir Paul had joined the Bank of England in 1980 after graduating from Cambridge and became executive director for markets. He was then promoted to the post of deputy governor for financial stability in 2009.

West Ham's Karren Brady and Professor John Kay were others in business and economics who were given knighthood in the New Year's Honours list.