Gold medal Olympians will no longer get automatic honours, says David Cameron Sir Bob said the new policy could be trialled in advance at "BD12" - the Whitehall code for next month's Birthday Honours - ahead of the start of the Olympics and Paralympics. He told MPs in a memorandum: "He has particularly asked that the vast majority of honours go to individuals who have gone beyond excellence in playing their part to create a Big Society. He wants the Honours Committees to give more consideration to how our top sports stars, actors, business people etc are also using their prominence and profile for the greater good in giving back to society in any number of ways. He added: "In the light of this strategic guidance, it is likely that the majority of candidates for honours will be engaged in some form of philanthropic activity." Sir Bob said the changes "might lead to a silver medallist who has competed at the highest level over a long period getting an award, when an 18 year old winning gold at first competition might not." John Lidstone, a leading expert on the honours" system, said that a tendency to give out senior honours to successful young athletes after previous Games had created problems at the 2012 Olympics. One example was how to reward triple gold medal winner Sir Chris Hoy, who was knighted after the Beijing Olympics, if he wins another gold. He said: "What will they do - give him a life peerage?" Officials are also hoping that the new criteria will bring about greater fairness between honours awarded to Olympics and Paralympics sports stars. There was a major row after the last Olympics in Beijing, when half of Britain's Paralympics gold medalists were overlooked in the 2009 New Year Honours" List. Great Britain's Paralympic team finished second in the medals table in Beijing, while their able-bodied counterparts came fourth in the Olympic medal table. Every Olympic gold medallist in the Olympics was given an honour ranging from an MBE to a knighthood, but 17 of the 35 Paralympic champions got nothing at all. The list of athletes given awards in the honours list is drawn up by a committee at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport before being handed on to the Cabinet Office, which administers the honours system. Sir Bob, who is giving evidence to MPs next week, made clear that in future there will be "no "automatic" honours" for successful sports stars. The current system had seen sports stars being "honoured without "giving back" either in the community or in the development of the sport," he said. This led to people receiving MBEs or OBEs "for an achievement which they then repeat," as well as "charges of automaticity" and "fast tracked honours for people who have achieved an instant success/record." Any success will now be judged against four standards: sporting achievement/excellence and level of competition; length of service in a sporting field; service to sport or the wider community; and any honours currently held. The "giving back" criterion was "in line with the Prime Minister's strategic objectives" to take into account "how the candidate has used their profile for the benefit of the wider community, and/or the development of sport." Applying the four new factors also "would facilitate parity of approach to awards for Olympians and Paralympians that could deliver equitable proportions of award for the Olympics and Paralympics without using an automatic formula that delivered an award for every gold medal." There were apparent contradictions among those who received honours after the 2008 Games. Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy was knighted for winning three gold medals but Paralympic cyclist Darren Kenny, who won four golds, only received an OBE. Swimmer Rebecca Adlington received an OBE for her two golds, while Paralympian swimmer Eleanor Simmonds, who also won two gold medals in the pool, was given an lesser MBE. Baroness Grey-Thompson, Britain's most celebrated Paralympian with 11 gold medals, queried the "lack of parity" in the honours" system after the 2009 New Year's honours. Lady Grey-Thompson said then: "There is a lack of parity, and we are playing catch-up. When I got my MBE after 1992 [after three gold and one silver medal at the Paralympic Games in Barcelona] there were hardly any Paralympians who ever received honours. The British Paralympic Association also said in 2009 that it was "very disappointed that not all the Beijing 2008 Paralympic gold medalists could be recognised but we look forward to more athletes being honoured in the future."