The UK honours system rewards people for merit, service or bravery.

An honour, decoration or medal is a public way of illustrating that the recipient has done something worthy of recognition.

As the ‘fountain of honour’ in the United Kingdom, The Queen has the sole right of conferring all titles of honour, including life peerages, knighthoods and gallantry awards.

Anybody can make a recommendation for a British national to receive an honour.

And awards can be made to deserving and high-achieving people from every section of the community, from school crossing officials and charity workers to leaders of industry.

Since The Queen confers honours mostly on the advice of the Cabinet Office, recommendations for honours must be sent to the Ceremonial Secretariat of the Cabinet Office, not Buckingham Palace.

While most honours are awarded on the advice of the Government, there are still certain honours in the United Kingdom that the Sovereign confers at his or her own discretion.

The only honours for which the Sovereign personally selects recipients are: the Order of the Garter, the Order of the Thistle, the Order of Merit, the Royal Victorian Order and the Royal Victorian Chain, Royal Medals of Honour and Medals for Long Service.

Honorary decorations and awards are occasionally granted to people from other countries who have made a significant contribution to relations between the United Kingdom and their own country. These awards are granted on the advice of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Recipients of honours receive their awards from The Queen or The Prince of Wales at a ceremony known as an Investiture. 

Orders are also sometimes exchanged between the Sovereign and overseas heads of state.

Since the mid-twentieth century, the exchange of Orders has become less personal and more formal and diplomatic. The award, return or removal of Orders can still be highly symbolic.

Examples are The Queen’s conferring the Order of Merit on President Mandela, or her return of the Romanian Order received from President Ceausescu and her instruction to erase the President’s name from the Register of the Order of the Bath.

Today, Orders bestowed on The Queen, and reciprocal awards to foreign heads of state, can be seen as formal and official awards by which one nation honours another.