(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the appointment process and the circumstances leading to the dismissal of the former United Kingdom Ambassador to the United States, Lord Mandelson.
Sometimes exquisite coincidences happen in this place. We have just seen a Bill presented on the topic of public office accountability by the immediate past Foreign Secretary, the now Justice Secretary. I will just read to the House the first line of its description:
“a Bill to impose a duty on public authorities and public officials to act with candour, transparency and frankness”.
I think I might return to those issues in the course of what I have to say.
As I have said, this is a matter of utmost concern across the House. It is an issue that does not just concern the Conservative party, the Scottish National party or the DUP; Members from all parts of the House are worried about it, as we have seen in the newspapers. The Government have key questions to answer, and as I said yesterday, the central question is: who knew what, and when? Let us be clear, though. There are many questions on many levels in this matter, and the Government must answer them all; so far, they have singularly failed to do so.
The questions fall naturally into four categories. First, was Peter Mandelson ever an appropriate character to appoint as our ambassador? [Hon. Members: “No.”] Well, we will get to that later. Secondly, what was the procedure for vetting, was it properly followed, and why has it gone so horribly wrong? Thirdly, what has happened in the last couple of weeks to lead to the demise of the former ambassador—who made the critical decisions and why? Fourthly, what do we do now? How do we make this Government tell the House and the nation the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth—which in itself would be a novelty for Lord Mandelson?
Let us begin with whether Lord Mandelson was ever an appropriate selection. As I said yesterday, our ambassador in Washington stands at the nexus of our most important bilateral relationship. For those who have not served in government, it is the one bilateral relationship run by No. 10, not the Foreign Office. That is because it is so important, and it is a role of exceptional sensitivity. More classified information crosses the ambassador’s desk than gets to most Cabinet Ministers. Indeed, in British embassies, the agencies report to the ambassador. It is not the same in American embassies, where the CIA does what it wants. Our agencies report to the ambassador, so it is a sensitive post.
Today, Peter Kyle—I have forgotten his new post—said that global circumstances dictate that the position of this particular ambassador is more important than it has ever been, and it could easily go terribly wrong. The failure to appoint the right person has already had a serious and deleterious impact on the national interest.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The Prime Minister staked his special relationship with the US President on the diplomatic skills of an ambassador who had a special relationship with the world’s most notorious child sex offender. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that the Prime Minister’s judgment and the UK’s presence on the world stage have been diminished by this affair.
David Davis
There is no doubt that the right hon. Lady is correct. Frankly, I am going to try not to make this ad hominem about the Ministers who made decisions; we need to make that decision later, as it were. She is right that it has diminished the standing of our Prime Minister, and I regret that. Although we are the Opposition, I want this Government to succeed in the national interest, and this is doing the opposite of that. The ambassador’s conduct, both prior to appointment and during, must reflect the highest standards of integrity—that is fundamental, and it is true for any ambassador.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. It unites the House with its purpose. It is clear within the rules that MPs are accountable for their staff and their conduct and that there will be repercussions. Does he agree that the Prime Minister is accountable for his appointment of the UK ambassador to the United States of America, and the same rules should apply?
David Davis
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. When we look at the mechanisms engaged, as I hope we will in the course of this debate, we will see why the Prime Minister made the wrong decision. There is no doubt in my mind that he did.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman talks about decisions by the Prime Minister. He talks about the duty on Members of this place and of the other place to conduct themselves appropriately. Does it surprise him, as it surprises me, that we have a situation where my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) has been unfairly suspended from the Labour Whip, along with others, for opposing disability benefit cuts and the Mother of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), remains suspended from the Labour party, yet Lord Mandelson retains the Labour Whip in the House of Lords? Are all of those things not decisions by the Prime Minister? People outside here, including Labour members, think it is completely unfair.
David Davis
I understand all too well the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. Many have made it in the newspapers, although generally anonymously. A double standard applies to the top of the Labour party—Labour royalty, if you like—as opposed to other people who have been punished for doing their job, representing their people and so on. He has got a point.
Jeremy Corbyn
Does the right hon. Gentleman not think it slightly odd that sufficient due diligence was not done prior to the appointment of Lord Mandelson? On the day before Lord Mandelson was dismissed, apparently there were a lot of emails available to the Prime Minister that he either was not given or did not read. We find ourselves in this odd situation where the British ambassador to the USA has to be dismissed in the full glare of international publicity because of his past behaviour, which was apparently well known to a very large number of people who should not have supported his appointment in the first place.
David Davis
The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right. We will come to a number of circumstances in which information was available and should have been, but was not, acted upon. This was not as hard as some may try to portray it as being: after all, the appointment did not come as a surprise. Lord Mandelson himself was clearly campaigning to become the ambassador after failing to win the chancellorship of Oxford University. Indeed, someone told me that he was actually campaigning for the ambassadorship while also campaigning for the chancellorship, so he was after two jobs, not one. It was clear at an early stage that he was going to attempt to do this, and there was widespread discussion at the time about his suitability for the role, so there was plenty of time for a preliminary investigative or vetting process. There was, and is, a vast amount of data in the public domain. Most of what I will speak of today is public domain material—I will explain when it is not.
What would those conducting that vetting process be looking for? A number of us on these Benches and, I would imagine, on most Benches have been through such processes ourselves. Traditionally they would review the history and personality of the candidate, assessing risks, such as the risk of the candidate being susceptible to undue influence, or, in extreme examples, blackmail—the Russians and the Chinese collect kompromat all the time; the risk of the candidate abusing or misusing the role; the risk of the candidate doing something that would cause reputational damage; or the risk, with which some on the Labour Front Bench may have difficulties and which they may find rather old-fashioned, that the candidate is too morally flawed to be given a major role in any case and fails a simple ethical test, which is where we may arrive in a moment. I am afraid that I am old-fashioned. I view ethical tests as an absolute, which cannot be traded off against some benefit or other.
In the history that I am about to detail, we see a Peter Mandelson who is easily dazzled by wealth and glamour and is willing to use his public position to pursue those things for himself. This was visible very early in his career, even to his friends. In 1998, he was sacked as Trade and Industry Secretary for failing to declare a pretty enormous interest-free loan that he had received from Geoffrey Robinson. At that time Mr Robinson’s businesses were being investigated by Mandelson’s Department, so there was a clear clash of interests, and Mandelson did not even declare the loan. That was the first occasion on which we saw so publicly the abiding flaws in his character, which would generally disqualify any normal person for a job as important as this. Even his friends saw that. One of his flaws was described plainly by one of his friends back then, who said:
“Peter was living beyond his means, pretending to be something he’s not, and therefore he was beholden to people.”
The important bit is that last phrase: he was beholden to people. It was a characteristic that was displayed time and again as he sought to use his position to curry favour with very wealthy and very powerful people who were either current or future benefactors.
This was repeated in 2001, when Lord Mandelson was again sacked after attempting to broker a British passport for Mr Hinduja, a wealthy donor to the Millennium Dome project, with which he was involved. Mandelson attempted to influence the Home Office to give Mr Hinduja a passport when Mr Hinduja and his brother were under investigation in the Bofors weapons contract scandal—again, a dubious reason. Incidentally, it was at about that time that his association with Epstein started, and the infamous birthday book entries date from then.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern about the possibility that the Prime Minister will discuss this issue with President Trump later in the week? The Prime Minister has to have influence over President Trump for very good reasons, but if the issue of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein comes up—we understand that President Trump also contributed to that birthday book, with an infamous poem—what is the Prime Minister going to say?
David Davis
I am very glad to say that I am not the Prime Minister’s speechwriter, but all I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that I hope the issue does not come up, because it would undoubtedly be embarrassing and diplomatically problematic for the Prime Minister.
Astonishingly, after being sacked twice for misdemeanours, in 2004 Lord Mandelson was appointed by Tony Blair to be the European trade commissioner. He was, as it were, given a third chance. As the trade commissioner, he was criticised on numerous occasions for accepting lavish hospitality from companies on whose commercial interests he was in the process of ruling—whether the company concerned was Microsoft, an Italian shoe producer or whatever—which, for some reason, often involved free luxury cruises. He saw nothing wrong with such apparently compromising behaviour, and in that category, indeed rather at the top of it, was his association with the Russian oligarch and gangster capitalist Oleg Deripaska.
Let us be clear who we are talking about here, because most Members probably do not know much about him. Mr Deripaska was the winner of the battle for control of the Russian aluminium industry, a battle in which roughly 100 people were murdered. In court reports, Interpol documents and American Government publications, Deripaska has faced serious allegations of murder, bribery, extortion, and involvement in organised crime. This is a truly bad man.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and for the case that he is making. I wonder whether, while he is dealing with the influence of Russian oligarchs in British politics, he will opine on the suitability of British political parties accepting donations from Russians, and the impact that that might have on their policies and their positions.
David Davis
Had the hon. Gentleman been here before the last election, he would have sat in this Chamber, I hope, and heard me opine on all those subjects and raise prospective laws to deal with those oligarchs, laws that, sadly, this Government have failed to carry through.
That, then, is the backdrop. Mr Deripaska’s visa was revoked by the Americans in 2006, so Mandelson had no excuse for not knowing about his activities, yet as European trade commissioner he saw fit to accept hospitality from Deripaska on multiple occasions over several years, which included visiting him in Moscow and being flown by his private jet to stay at his dacha in Siberia and on his private yacht in the Mediterranean—all while considering whether to give Russian aluminium access to the European market. Deripaska’s activities were known to the British security services, and briefings were available to Mandelson, so, again, there is no excuse. He did this in the full knowledge of who he was dealing with. It was in this position that Mandelson promoted and signed off concessions to Russian aluminium companies, which ultimately benefited Mr Deripaska, or his companies, to the tune of $200 million a year. Although it did not actually happen, one company was due to be the subject of an initial public offering—due to be floated—shortly thereafter. A $200 million change in profits tends to mean a multibillion-dollar change in value, and that will have gone into the pocket of Mr Deripaska. As we all know, Deripaska is a nominee of Putin, so we can assume that a large chunk of it went to Putin as well.
In 2008 Mandelson was, very controversially, raised to the peerage by Gordon Brown and appointed Business Secretary. His contact with Epstein did not end. As Epstein was pleading guilty to child sex offences, Mandelson emailed him:
“I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened... Your friends stay with you and love you.”
Little remorse there, shall we say, and little pity for the victims.
After Lord Mandelson left office when Labour lost the election in 2010, he founded a lobbying firm, Global Counsel. Controversially, he did not name his clients. The House of Lords has rather slack rules about this, so somebody can create a company and just declare that they get however much money from the company, but they do not declare who the customers really are. I do not have documentary records on this, so I am not going to name the companies I am talking about, but there are Russian companies—extremely dubious Russian companies—and Chinese companies. I am looking at my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), who would recognise a number of the Chinese companies because he has campaigned about them, but I will leave it there.
In the context of Lord Mandelson’s appointment to Washington—and bear in mind that this is all to do with a judgment made about his being the ambassador in Washington—it is his close association with the organs of the Chinese state that should have raised most red flags, if the House will forgive the pun. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China presented a dossier to US Senators, which provoked enough concern that they passed it to the FBI. This may have been a reason—and here I am surmising—for the purported concerns about whether the Trump Administration would allow Mandelson’s accreditation back in January.
Chris Curtis (Milton Keynes North) (Lab)
I appreciate some of the points the right hon. Member is making, but I would just note that one of the Conservative candidates running in a Milton Keynes constituency at the last general election worked for Global Counsel. It is interesting that the Conservatives have such complaints about this organisation when they were willing to support a candidate who worked for it.
David Davis
I am going to be very gentle. Let me just say that we are talking about a very serious issue, in which the national interest is engaged, and about somebody who in my view has used his public position to his own advantage and to the disadvantage of the state. That is not true of some candidate working in a junior role for the company, but it is true of the man who created that company and used it to promote his own interests.
To come back to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, from my point of view—and this is personal rather than political—even more worrying were the attitudes struck by Mandelson in February 2021 when, during a lobbying meeting on behalf of his rich clients, he told Chinese Premier Li Keqiang that the critics of Beijing’s human rights record would be “proved wrong”. That astonishing statement was followed later in 2021 by Mandelson being the only Labour peer to vote—against a three-line Whip—against a genocide amendment that would have meant this country had to reconsider any trade deal with a country found by the High Court to be committing genocide, and most specifically China was in the crosshairs. Frankly, it would appear that Lord Mandelson has subcontracted his conscience for money.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has mentioned the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. In case the House thinks it is a Conservative organisation, can I explain that it has Members of Parliament from all parties in this House, that 53 countries are involved and that it has co-chairs from both the left and the right? It is wholly above party politics, but is all about the threat from China.
David Davis
My right hon. Friend is exactly right, and the Senators to whom these documents were sent are very responsible ones. They would not frivolously pass on such documents to the FBI, and the FBI would not frivolously accept them and investigate.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend recall that on 21 November last, the Prime Minister was challenged to rule out appointing Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the United States on the grounds that he had said Ukraine would have to give up all the land Russia had occupied and that it must give up any hope of ever joining NATO in return for some unspecified security guarantees? The Prime Minister said he would not be tempted to comment on the possibility of his being appointed ambassador, and as he said it he had a very noticeable little smirk on his face. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister is not smirking about this matter any more?
David Davis
I say to my right hon. Friend that the Prime Minister gave what was clearly—what can I say?—a lawyer’s answer to that question, which as we all know is not a proper answer at all.
No. 10 was well aware that Mandelson had continued his relationship with Epstein after he was convicted as a paedophile. How the Prime Minister could possibly have thought it was wise to appoint a man who was on record consorting with alleged murderers and convicted paedophiles to a position of privilege and power is, to me, utterly unfathomable.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The right hon. Member has rightly pointed out Lord Mandelson’s murky attitude towards money, but does this not also shine a terrible light on his attitude towards women, which, by contrast, does not look good for the Government?
David Davis
I agree—the hon. Member is right. Lord Mandelson’s continued support of Epstein shows an attitude that I find completely reprehensible in exactly that respect, because Epstein’s victims were women—young women, girls, children. So, yes, I do agree.
It has long been clear that Mandelson was not suitable to be our ambassador, so the question is: what changed last week? The Bloomberg emails revealing further details of Epstein’s relationship with him and the birthday book in which he referred to Epstein as his “best pal” were with Mandelson by Monday evening and with the Foreign Office overnight or by Tuesday morning at the latest. The Prime Minister is said to have known of the investigation by Tuesday afternoon, but not of the content of the emails. Why, when our most important diplomat in our most important international relationship is under question or under investigation, would the Prime Minister not want to know the details of the investigation immediately?
We understand that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, was talking to Mandelson all day on Tuesday, so what was Mandelson saying to McSweeney and was this passed to the Prime Minister? One of the things I would ask the Minister is if, later on, he can give the House an undertaking that we can have a record of that conversation, because we need to know. Mandelson gave an immediate interview on Wednesday morning—hours before Prime Minister’s questions—admitting that more embarrassing revelations would come out. Mandelson’s past scandals and his links to Epstein were crystal clear by the time the Prime Minister rose to speak in PMQs last Wednesday.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend aware that James Matthews, the Sky News reporter, cornered Lord Mandelson on 27 May to ask him specifically about staying in Epstein’s flat? Mandelson did not deny it, but simply said that he regretted having any connection with him. These are the kinds of questions that should have been asked, and were being asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) and many other Members back in May, about the suitability of the ambassador. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister should have looked into this further at that point?
David Davis
Exactly, and in fact earlier than that point. I will come back to that when I talk briefly about the vetting process.
What precisely did the Prime Minister learn from reading the Bloomberg emails that was not already known about Lord Mandelson from public information and vetting done before the appointment? Each day that goes by, we see more shocking revelations not only about his misconduct and his links to Jeffrey Epstein, but about the failures of both the vetting process and the political judgment of those at the top of Government. I say to the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) that that relates not just to their political judgment, but to their moral standards and the equity in how they apply those moral standards across the board.
That brings us to the question: what happened to the vetting process? Most of what I have described was in the public domain. It does not take James Bond; Google could do this. What was not in the public domain was in the official records, or known to the intelligence agencies—in other words, it was all available to the Government. We know there was a two-page propriety and ethics briefing, which should have flagged concerns, but it merely triggered an unpenetrating email inquiry. That goes straight to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), which is: where were the questions? Someone does not just send a three-line email and forget about it; they pursue the questions and cross-question the person under suspicion.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. He will know that members of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament are subject to extremely deep vetting. There is also a double check, which is that Parliament has to give its agreement to the appointments to the Committee, once nominated by the Prime Minister. Does the Mandelson case not strengthen the argument for pre-confirmation hearings by the relevant parliamentary Committees of this House in order that candidates can be cross-questioned? At the moment, the Cabinet Office advises on only about 1,000 regulated public appointments for this House, ahead of appointment. None of them is a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office appointment. Is it not now time to make that change, whether they are political appointments or senior civil servants?
David Davis
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. I certainly think that that would be the right way to go for political appointments. It would probably be the right way to go for the top dozen embassies. I would not worry about all of them, without being rude to—well, I won’t pick a country. That would just be meaningless, but the top dozen are well worth doing.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team produced a report that was presumably handed to the Prime Minister, and that was certainly done prior to the announcement. Does he agree that the Minister must tell us whether the Prime Minister read that report, and whether it contained anything that Parliament should have been aware of before he made the appointment?
David Davis
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. He is right and I will reiterate the point. In addition to what my right hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) said, there should have been a fully developed vetting process and that appears not to have happened. There is a vetting unit in the Foreign Office and a vetting unit in the Cabinet Office, and normally one of them would have been engaged on this. There have been claims that developed vetting happens after an appointment. No, it does not. For existing ambassadors who are on a five-year vetting cycle, sure. For ambassadors or officers who are being read into a new class of material, sure. But for this—an outsider coming into the most sensitive job in Government—certainly not.
Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
David Davis
I am being frowned at by Mr Speaker for taking so much time. I will give way for the last time.
Joe Robertson
My right hon. Friend is being very generous. At the weekend, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade appeared to say that the Government believed it was “worth the risk” of appointing Lord Mandelson from the outset. As I heard it, what the Business Secretary was saying was that for the positive qualities Lord Mandelson had—as they saw it—it was worth the risk that he might be more involved with a convicted paedophile than they thought from the outset. If that is the risk the Government were judging him by, is that not shameful?
David Davis
I have already said that my view is that ethical standards are absolute, so there should not be a trade-off.
Let us take this, for a second, as a practical decision and take Mandelson at his own measure. He loves being called the dark lord and all the rest of it. He preens himself on being a master of the dark arts: spin, message management, political tactics and manipulation of the truth—a repertoire of things that most people would not be proud of. If the Government think that those skills actually make up for his sins, well no. First, he is not as good as he is cracked up to be, frankly. He is being measured—remember this—against Karen Pierce, the officer in place who was probably the best ambassador in Washington and certainly the most revered, and, after her, Tim Barrow, who was our ambassador to the European Union during Brexit and the National Security Adviser. He knows all these things to the tips of fingers. Was Lord Mandelson better than them? Pull the other one.
I am coming to the end, Mr Speaker, before you frown any more. No. 10 claims that Mandelson was economical with the truth. Mandelson claims he told the whole truth. Both statements cannot be true. The questions I pose to the Minister are these. Will the Government rule out Mandelson being brought back into Government? No. 10 refused to rule out giving him another job last week. If Mandelson withheld information during the vetting process, will he lose the Labour Whip? I am looking at Mr Burgon when I say that. Is he going to have to resign from the House of Lords? Will Lord Mandelson be receiving compensation? Some reports in the media suggest we will pay £100,000 of taxpayers’ money. Will the Prime Minister, his chief of staff, his Cabinet Secretary and the permanent secretary to the FCDO appear before the Select Committees of the House to give evidence? Will the Minister provide the House with the documents—the propriety and ethics team report and the developed vetting report, if it exists—required to answer our questions as to who knew what and when? There are many quotes in the newspapers from those in the Minister’s own party about their horror regarding the Prime Minister’s decisions and processes.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Ind)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
David Davis
No, I really am coming to an end.
I will quote just one of them. This is a long-standing senior Labour Member:
“I care that this culture of turning a blind eye to horrendous behaviour is endemic at the top of society”.
I agree with him. When individuals with such associations are ushered back into the heart of Government, are we not right to ask what standards now govern appointments to public life? Impunity is not a right. Impropriety is not a technicality. And survivors of crime should not have to do the heavy lifting of holding the powerful to account.
I mentioned at the beginning of my speech that a Bill has today been presented to the House imposing a duty of candour on public authorities and public officials. My last and single question to the Minister is this: will his Government now live up to the words in that Bill?
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman, as he is a senior Member, that though he has taken the time he felt was required, it has been longer than 15 minutes.
May I just say that when we refer to other Members, it should be by constituency, not by name. I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
My Committee first asked for the opportunity to question Lord Mandelson at the end of last year, when rumours first surfaced about his appointment as ambassador to the United States. We continued to ask after his appointment was confirmed. Indeed, the Minister may remember our exchange, on 14 January in this Chamber, when I asked him to
“allow Lord Mandelson the time to come before my Committee before he leaves for the United States”
to
“allow my colleagues to hear directly why the Prime Minister has appointed him”.—[Official Report, 14 January 2025; Vol. 760, c. 143.]
Requests were made more often, and privately, after that, and in the eight months since. They have been turned down. I understand that there have been some Chinese whispers going on. It has been claimed that the FCDO has been telling journalists that the Committee had the opportunity to meet and question Lord Mandelson when we were in Washington. Obviously, there has been a break in the chain, because the reality is that we had a 15-minute interaction over breakfast while receiving a formal briefing from diplomatic staff about other meetings that day, which is quite materially different from the type of formal evidence session required to conduct meaningful scrutiny.
I want to make it clear that we have not sought to question Lord Mandelson out of a desire to frustrate the Government or their diplomatic agenda. In fact, quite the opposite. It is our responsibility to scrutinise the FCDO to prevent exactly this sort of mistake from damaging Britain’s reputation on the international stage. We want to make the Foreign Office the best it can be and in so many ways it is doing an absolutely excellent job. It is fantastic to see the way in which Britain’s reputation has been so enhanced. However, mistakes can be, and obviously have been, made.
The shocking revelations of the last week were not in the public domain in December, but Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was very widely known. Had my Committee had the opportunity to question Lord Mandelson, I am confident that our members would have raised a range of questions, along with these ones, as journalists, particularly those at the Financial Times, have tried to do. It is quite possible that those questions may have provoked evasive answers, possibly not true answers, or even the same sort of response met by journalists, particularly those from the Financial Times, but that would all have been in the public sphere. It would have been on the record, and Lord Mandelson would have had the opportunity to tell the truth before the House.
Having failed to convince the Government to permit my Committee to question Lord Mandelson, I wrote to the Foreign Secretary on Friday, posing a number of questions about the apparent failures in the due diligence and vetting processes conducted before and after the announcement of Lord Mandelson’s appointment. Those questions included whether there were any concerns raised by agencies undertaking security clearance ahead of Lord Mandelson’s appointment and whether a decision was taken to dismiss any such security concerns, and, if so, whether such a decision was taken by the FCDO or by No. 10. I also asked whether any decision was taken to suspend or alter the usual vetting requirements or the usual timeframe for vetting procedures.
I thank the Foreign Secretary for her prompt response to that letter, which I received this morning. In her reply, she informs me that the initial due diligence process had been carried out by the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team before the announcement of Lord Mandelson’s appointment, as has been widely reported. She assures me that the Foreign Office did not contribute to that process, and that no issues were raised by the FCDO as a result.
Emily Thornberry
I think this is quite important, and I would like to have the opportunity to inform the House with clarity so that we all know where we stand. I believe that this contribution to the debate is an important one. It is not a party political point; it is just trying to ensure that we learn from what we have heard.
The Foreign Secretary assures me that the Foreign Office did not contribute to that Cabinet Office process, and that no issues were raised by the FCDO as a result. The question is this: did the Cabinet Office miss the glaring red flag of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein, or did it fail to pass those concerns on? If so, why?
Several hon. Members rose—
Emily Thornberry
Genuinely guys, just give me a chance to put this before you. The Foreign Secretary’s letter states that—[Interruption.] I hope that the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) will give me an opportunity to put this before the House. I apologise for calling hon. Members “guys”.
The Foreign Secretary’s letter states that the Cabinet Office due diligence process was followed by the usual developed vetting process, or DV, which was carried out by national security vetting on behalf of the FCDO, after the announcement of Lord Mandelson’s appointment. According to the Foreign Secretary, this was conducted to the
“usual standard set for Developed Vetting.”
Career civil servants are regularly subjected to such tests, and many have stories of their appointments being delayed or even prohibited because they have studied abroad, married an Iranian, or simply because they were born in Belfast. The question is this: does having significant information in the public domain about a relationship with an internationally prolific child sex offender not raise more red flags than simply being born in Belfast? Is a civil servant a greater risk to this country because they are married to somebody who was born in the middle east or because they were close friends with Jeffrey Epstein? Did the Foreign Office vetting process miss a glaring national security and reputational risk, or was it told to overlook it?
My Committee’s duty is to scrutinise the Foreign Office to make it the best that it can be, and neither the Foreign Office nor the Cabinet Office has shown itself to be the best it can be in the process surrounding this appointment.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Emily Thornberry
I will get to the end of this paragraph, and then I will give way.
That is why yesterday my Committee asked the Foreign Office permanent under-secretary and the Cabinet Office head of propriety and ethics to appear before us and explain what went wrong. We have been told that no one is available before the recess, but we will continue to push for prompt and public answers.
Richard Tice
The right hon. Lady is speaking powerfully. Does she think that if her Committee had been allowed to interview Lord Mandelson, it would have come up with a recommendation not to approve his appointment, and, in such a situation, does she think that her recommendation would have been listened to?
Emily Thornberry
I think it is slightly more subtle than that. The point is that if Lord Mandelson had appeared before the Committee, he would have faced a range of questions that would have highlighted issues that needed to be considered properly and that could not, in the rush to appoint him, be overlooked in the way they seem to have been. It is about putting a brake on it. We would not, as a Committee, have the power to say that the Government cannot appoint someone, but we would shed light on the nature of the appointment and, through our questions, be able to examine whether or not it was the wisest thing to do.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Does the right hon. Lady agree that if we are to salvage anything positive from this whole sorry episode, it must be that in the future, Parliament, through the Select Committees, has a role in this process? Does not her experience illustrate that the question of who is in charge of that must remain with the Select Committee and not with the Executive?
Emily Thornberry
I would not quite put it like that; I think that the Executive do, in the end, make the decision—they are the Executive. However, I think that we should, as a Select Committee, have a role in this process, particularly when it comes to political appointments. It has happened before, as the right hon. Gentleman may remember, when there were political appointments to the ambassador to South Africa and to Paris—it has happened in the past. I do think, particularly when there are political appointments, that the Select Committee should have a role in that process, and we can make better decisions as a result.
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
I am a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr Speaker. Our Committee has a proposal that we should have a greater role in scrutinising the appointment of the US ambassador, given that they are one of the highest ranking members of the diplomatic service, and to help the Government to avoid this situation in the future. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government should consider our proposal seriously?
Emily Thornberry
My hon. Friend may be surprised to hear that I agree with her completely. I think that would be very wise.
Mark Pritchard
I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee for giving way. I made my own comments earlier about pre-confirmation hearings. Adding on to that, does the right hon. Lady agree that when senior civil servants—whether from the Foreign Office or elsewhere—are asked to come to Select Committees on important matters and they find some excuse not to attend, the Select Committee should at least have the power of summons in order that somebody gives an account? In addition to that, if security or classification is used either truthfully or—shall we say—exaggeratingly as an excuse not to give evidence to a Committee, does the right hon. Lady agree that when Select Committees have Privy Counsellors, as in her case, a briefing could at least be heard on Privy Council terms?
Emily Thornberry
The right hon. Gentleman raises some important points. The power of Select Committees to summon witnesses has been an ongoing debate, and I suspect we have not resolved it yet. He also raises the matter of Privy Counsellors; our Committee has myself and another Privy Council member. The difficulty is that if we were offered Privy Council briefings, as we are sometimes, it is quite difficult, because we want to be able to do those things in public and inform the public of the work of the Foreign Office to ensure that when difficult decisions are being made, they understand why those decisions are being made, with all the factors involved in that. That is fine; I think we need to trust the public more than we sometimes do. We certainly need to trust Back Benchers more than we sometimes do.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
The Chairman of the Select Committee is being very generous. She is elegantly describing due process and is implying—at least I think she is—that due process may have been set aside for other purposes in this case. However, we know that due process was done because the Prime Minister stood at that Dispatch Box last Wednesday and said that it had been done—unless he is using the Bill Clinton defence, and it turns out that due process was done, but set aside. Where does that leave the Prime Minister?
Emily Thornberry
I think it is difficult to have answers to all the right hon. Gentleman’s questions at the moment. I think the most important thing is that lessons are learned, and even if all due process was followed and the inquiries were proceeded with to the letter, they clearly are not good enough and we need to change them. Either due process was not followed or it was and we need to change it. Either way, we need to work together to ensure that this never happens again, because something went very wrong.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
Will the right hon. Member give way?
Dr Spencer
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, who is very generous. As MPs, we put the interests of the country above all else. What does she make of the decision to appoint an individual to represent our country in difficult negotiations in the knowledge that the other country had compromising information on the individual?
Emily Thornberry
Clearly, we all think that it was a mistake. The question is how the mistake occurred and how we can ensure that this sort of thing does not happen again, because something went very wrong. When Lord Mandelson was appointed, red flags were obviously missed or ignored. On the day that the American President lands in Britain for a state visit, the Government are materially worse off because we do not have an ambassador to the United States.
Several hon. Members rose—
Emily Thornberry
I really am finishing. If we do not have the opportunity to scrutinise this failure, how can we ensure that we stop it from happening again? We need to improve our scrutiny and our decision making.
Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this important emergency debate, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) on securing it.
My right hon. Friend made a series of excellent points, as did the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). I agree with all those points. It is extraordinary that, on the eve of the President’s state visit, we are talking about the US ambassador who has been sacked in scandal.
There are many unanswered questions, and I will be asking many of them, but today the Prime Minister needs to do three things. The Prime Minister needs to come clean about what he knew and when he knew it—not send his junior Ministers to cover for him. The Prime Minister needs to publish the Mandelson-Epstein files in full. The Prime Minister needs to take responsibility for the appointment of Lord Mandelson as ambassador to Washington. But the Prime Minister is not here, because he is hiding from Parliament and hiding from questions. I know that he is a busy man, but confidence in him and in his Government rests on him being able to account for what happened, and so far no one is taking any responsibility.
We have had our ambassador in the US sacked over his relationship with a man convicted of child sex offences. What is more—this tells us everything we need to know—this was an appointment apparently forced through by the Prime Minister and/or his chief of staff. We have seen a political ally pushed ahead of qualified candidates because the Prime Minister and Morgan McSweeney admired his talent for mixing with the rich and powerful, despite his known links to a man who was publicly known as a convicted paedophile and a convicted sex trafficker.
Given the speeches we have heard and everything that is in the public domain, it is now very clear that Peter Mandelson should never have been appointed. It is now also clear that the Prime Minister knew that there were major concerns when he came to this House just last Wednesday. Instead of taking action, the Prime Minister expressed confidence in him. Why on earth did he do so? Was he poorly advised, or was it just his own poor judgment?
In every single one of his Government’s scandals to date, far from being the decisive man of conscience he promised to be, the Prime Minister has shrivelled from leadership, he has dodged responsibility, and he has hidden behind others, just as he is doing today, and he has come to this House and hidden behind process and lawyerly phrases. The Prime Minister has shown no courage, no judgment, no backbone. If he cannot see it and Government Members cannot see it, I can assure them that the British public can. The Prime Minister has turned out to be everything he claimed to abhor. This is a Government of sleaze and scandal, and Labour MPs know it. I will be interested to see how many of them stand up to defend their Government.
The British public and, especially, the victims of Jeffrey Epstein deserve the Prime Minister, for once, to be straight and honest with us. He must immediately do three things. First, he must apologise to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein for ever having appointed Peter Mandelson as ambassador. How is it that this has still not happened? There has been no apology. Secondly, as I said, he must publish the Mandelson-Epstein files in full—all the information he had at his disposal, both when he made the appointment and when he came to the House last week to express full confidence in Mandelson. Thirdly, he must make sure that someone takes responsibility.
Everyone now agrees that Peter Mandelson should not have been appointed. We have heard so much from my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington about endless scandal and conflicts of interest with China and Russia, so why was he appointed? Was it a failure of vetting? Was it that advisers hid information from the Prime Minister? Or was it that the Prime Minister knew and made the decision anyway? Someone needs to take responsibility.
Sir Julian Lewis
Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have seen a rapid transformation from the Prince of Darkness into a grovelling Lord Yum Yum? One has to ask, why was the British Prime Minister surprised? Had he never heard the tale of the turtle and the scorpion that meet at the side of the river? Should the Prime Minister not have realised that the poor old scorpion simply cannot help what is in its nature?
Mrs Badenoch
I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. The story is that of the frog and the scorpion, and it is one of my favourite childhood stories. Everyone knew what Lord Mandelson had been up to. It is simply not tenable for any Member on the Government Benches to hold the line on this one, burying their heads in the sand and hoping that it goes away, least of all the Prime Minister.
We now know that the Prime Minister was aware of the compromising emails last Wednesday at Prime Minister’s questions, yet he came to the House and said that he had confidence in his ambassador. Many on the Labour Benches cheered, but now they are all looking at their phones, and most of them do not have the courage to look me in the eye. They were cheering last week, and now they are full of shame. [Interruption.] Sorry, are they proud? No, they are not. I will continue.
Why on earth did the Prime Minister do that? At any point did he ask his staff what more information might surface? That morning Lord Mandelson was saying that more information would surface. Did the Prime Minister receive a briefing about that ahead of Prime Minister’s questions? It is inconceivable that he did not. Ministers are now claiming that new information subsequently came to light—new information that they did not have. The story is all mixed and messed up, and they know it. What information appeared that was not in the original vetting? We would like to hear that when the Minister responds.
There are still more questions to answer. When did the Prime Minister’s chief of staff speak with Peter Mandelson last week, and what did they discuss? Do the Government have the courage to tell us that? We are told that Morgan McSweeney spent hours on the phone to the ambassador at the same time that Lord Mandelson was dodging calls from the Foreign Office. What were they talking about?
Those are questions about what happened just last week, but how did all this come to happen last year? The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee has asked some excellent questions. But I ask the Minister this: what led to Lord Mandelson’s appointment in the first place? How was it that a man with known links to a child sex offender came to be appointed?
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
An additional question is whether there was any external influence. Did Tony Blair or any of Mandelson’s friends have anything to do with the appointment?
Mrs Badenoch
The hon. Gentleman asks a very good question, and I hope the Minister can provide an answer, because all of us across the House want to know.
We want to know how Lord Mandelson’s appointment happened in the first place. As I see it, there are only three possibilities. The first is that it was a failure of vetting, but are we really supposed to believe that this is the fault of the security services? I do not think so. Did they not drag up the intimate relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which was discussed last week? The second possibility—a bit more likely—is that the Prime Minister’s advisers kept information from him. If that happened, it would be incredibly serious.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
Does my right hon. Friend agree that no matter what happened or did not happen, a Prime Minister—a leader—has to shoulder the responsibility? It is absolutely appalling that they would then blame the staff around them. It is their responsibility, and they answer to the House—no excuse.
Mrs Badenoch
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This is a Prime Minister who hides behind everybody else; whether his advisers, his junior Ministers or his Back Benchers, that is what he does. If he wants to blame advisers, which one was it? Who kept it from him? Why have they not apologised and resigned? No one is taking responsibility.
Thirdly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington alluded to, the most likely but most worrying reason of all is that the Prime Minister had plenty of information to suggest that Lord Mandelson should not be appointed but chose to appoint him anyway. Even at the time, eyebrows were raised about this appointment and there were many critics; I remember it from the time. Now we read in the papers that the Prime Minister overruled security advice not to appoint Lord Mandelson. Is that true? The Minister should tell us.
It is time for the Prime Minister to come clean. He needs to come out of hiding. This issue will not go away. The Government cannot play for time as we will be back here again and again until all these documents are published. We will be back until someone takes responsibility.
This is a political crisis on top of an economic crisis all of the Government’s own making. They are distracted now, but they came into office with no plan for the country, no idea what they stood for and no vision for what they wanted to achieve. Because of that, they have been lurching from disaster to disaster, with winter fuel, tax rises, welfare chaos, scandal, and the Prime Minister’s failing leadership rebooted after just one year. The only plan they came into office with was a promise they made again and again to the British public: that they would restore honesty and integrity to Government. That was their defining mission, that was their grand plan, and it is in tatters.
So far, in one year, we have had an anti-corruption Minister sacked for corruption, a homelessness Minister sacked for evicting tenants, a Housing Secretary sacked for dodging housing tax, a Transport Secretary sacked for fraud and a director of strategy—apparently the speechwriter—lost only yesterday in scandal.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Ward)
indicated dissent.
Mrs Badenoch
The Minister shakes his head—he should be shaking it in shame. I have not said anything that is not true.
Now, finally, we have a US ambassador sacked for his links with a known child sex offender. The Government claim to care about violence against women and girls, until they actually have to do something about it. Where is the apology to those victims?
I know the Prime Minister does not like difficult questions, but it is his judgment that is being called into question. He owes it to the country to come clean.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)
First and foremost, I want to acknowledge the many victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s appalling abuse. For many of them, this story is not a political one; it is a personal one. No one could fail to be moved by listening to the brother and sister on the news this Sunday in their first interview in the UK, with the void that family will now feel from their loss. Let us not detract from them and probably the many more victims who still have not come forward but are caught up in this scandalous and horrific abuse.
I will keep my remarks short. I have recently returned from a trade envoy visit to Nigeria. What struck me on that visit was the hard work and dedication of our civil servants. I met the British deputy high commissioner. All our diplomats working across many missions in many countries do not make the headlines, but they are representing the UK with distinction week in, week out. I know that is replicated across many countries, including the deputy ambassador in Washington, who has taken over from Lord Mandelson. He has been described as a “highly regarded diplomat”, so we wish him well in his temporary role.
The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), rightly highlighted a number of important questions. I hope that the Government will be listening.
Apsana Begum
My hon. Friend will be aware that I am listed in the House as an independent, not for matters relating to conduct or duty of candour, but for voting with my conscience to scrap the two-child limit—a policy also supported by the former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Children’s Commissioner. My suspension from the Labour Whip was applied over a year ago, within minutes of my vote. Does she agree that while I and other Members, including the Mother of the House, appear to be held to one standard, Lord Mandelson appears to be held to another?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for making her point. I think about the amount of abuse that many parliamentarians in this Chamber sadly face—particularly black and minority ethnic Members—just for their mere existence. I know about the horrific domestic abuse that my hon. Friend has faced, and I hope that, with time, the Labour leadership will look at some of the issues around suspension. She will know that I am not privy to that, but I know that many of us continue to raise these issues with the leadership.
I will finish by highlighting some of the many questions that I hope the Minister will respond to. The key question that many people are asking, including many of my constituents, is about the recruitment process going forward. Will the Minister—the Foreign Secretary is not here—assure the House that the recruitment process will be strengthened so that in future our ambassadors will bolster the standing of our civil servants on the global stage?
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
This debate finds the House at its best, holding the Government and the Prime Minister properly to account. As the Leader of the Opposition said, we may be rising for the recess, but this issue will not go away. I pay tribute to the right hon. and gallant Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) for securing the debate and for laying out the series of questions that needs to be answered so that we can properly hold the Government to account. I will not repeat all his many questions. He made a long speech, which we will no doubt be rereading over the next few weeks.
I also pay tribute to the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). Her speech, in which she said that her Committee had tried to bring Lord Mandelson before the Committee to be scrutinised but were prevented from doing so, raised some serious questions about how Select Committees are being ignored by the Government.
We need to get serious about confirmatory hearings. The House and the public need to know what a Select Committee that specialises in a subject thinks about such an important public appointment before that appointment is confirmed. I hope that we will reform the processes of the House to build on what the right hon. Lady rightly said.
The Leader of the Opposition made some important points about the need for disclosure from the Government. We need those documents to be published if we are to have a transparent process where we can properly hold the Government to account. If they have answers, let us hear them, and then we can do that analysis.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)
Much has been said about the process, but does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it was clearly never worth the risk to appoint Peter Mandelson? Will he go further than that on the professionalism of the role? We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) about the reputation of our ambassadorial officials across the world. Would we be better served if in the future we looked to professionals to fill those roles rather than politicians?
Ed Davey
The hon. Gentleman makes a strong point. The previous ambassador to the United States was held in high regard, and many people think she should be appointed to the vacancy.
I want to mention what was said by the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi). Yes, we have all these questions to be answered, and there are disclosures to be made, but we must remember the victims in all this. I want to focus on the victims, because they deserve answers.
When we read those sickening messages, we think of Epstein’s victims and their families—girls as young as 14 groomed by Epstein, sexually abused by him, trafficked by him and sexually abused by other powerful men. I have been thinking about the trauma not only that they went through then, but have been through since, as they saw the man responsible for such horrific crimes escape justice for so long. They saw him convicted in 2008, but spend just 13 months in jail thanks to his powerful connections.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
We know that the trauma of sexual violence and sexual abuse can last a lifetime and, for many people, it can be too much to bear, as we have seen with Virginia Giuffre. Victims of sexual violence are often silenced, often ignored and always let down by a system that sometimes—often—sees powerful men protecting each other to diminish the crimes. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister should never have appointed somebody who had known links with a convicted paedophile?
Ed Davey
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I pay tribute to her for the work she has done to protect vulnerable women during her career. We salute her for that work.
As we remember the victims, how must it have felt for them to see Donald Trump, one of Epstein’s closest friends and a man found liable for sexual abuse himself, become President of the United States? How must it have felt for the victims to see another of Epstein’s closest friends made British ambassador to the United States? How must it have felt for the victims to hear the Prime Minister defend Lord Mandelson last week, even after he had seen those appalling messages? How must it have felt for them to hear Ministers say, even after Mandelson was sacked, that his appointment was a risk worth taking? I think that is quite shocking.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
My right hon. Friend has turned down the opportunity to dine with Donald Trump in the next couple of days, and he has been roundly criticised for that by some people who may well still attend. Does he agree that it is an ample opportunity for those people to ask President Trump about his entry in that horrific book of birthday wishes for Mr Epstein? Will my right hon. Friend ask them to report back to us about what President Trump said?
Ed Davey
The truth is that at such state banquets very few people get to speak to the visiting Head of State. However, the Prime Minister does, so I wonder if he will ask the President about his friendship with Epstein. I think he should and I think this House thinks he should.
For decades, the victims and their families have seen powerful men escape responsibility for what they did and what they knew. It should be a source of deep shame to Ministers that the British Government are now part of that story.
Alex Brewer (North East Hampshire) (LD)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons that Epstein escaped justice for so long was that he was protected by other powerful men, and that if we are truly to protect young people from predators, we need to ensure that the protectors of paedophiles have absolutely no place in public life?
Ed Davey
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I know that she has worked for victims of domestic violence and abuse as well. I can do no better than quote the words of Sky Roberts, the brother of Virginia Giuffre. He said about Lord Mandelson:
“He should not have been given the position in the first place. It speaks to how deep the corruption is in our systems.”
Not only must we hold the Government to account for this, but we need to fix our systems, whether through Select Committee hearings or by holding the powerful to account. Our constituents lose trust in our institutions when they fail to hold people to account. I am proud that my party, and I am sure others in this House, wish to see those reforms. Not least for the survivors, for the victims and for their families, we must hold the powerful to account.
In that regard, will the Minister, when he gets to his feet, apologise to all of Epstein’s victims and their families? We need an apology from the Minister today. Beyond that, will he say whether he agrees that the Prime Minister himself owes them a personal apology too?
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. We have a substantial speaking list and this debate is time-limited to three hours, so Back Benchers are on a six-minute speaking limit. I call John Slinger.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
I wish to express my sympathy with all the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and put on record my respect for the family of Virginia Giuffre who spoke so movingly about her on the BBC at the weekend.
In listening to the debate here and in the media over recent days, I am struck by the similarities with the one that took place over many years concerning the appointment of Mr Andy Coulson as the director of communications in Downing Street, from the point of his resignation in 2011 to his conviction for phone hacking in 2014. It was an appointment that David Cameron consistently said he would not have made if he had known at the time the information that subsequently came to light. For that reason, the question was constantly asked in this House and beyond: why did the security processes Mr Coulson went through prior to his appointment not uncover his past involvement in phone hacking?
Some people pointed to the fact that, unlike previous occupants of his role, Mr Coulson had not gone through developed vetting until long after his appointment and, indeed, had to resign before completing that process. Yet when the issue was directly discussed at the Leveson inquiry, this was the exchange between Lord Justice Leveson and the former Cabinet Secretary, Lord O’Donnell, which is important to recall. Lord O’Donnell said of developed vetting:
“I think some people have different understandings of what DV’ing would reveal. It wouldn’t have gone into enormous detail about phone hacking, for example.”
Lord Justice Leveson replied:
“No. It’s concerned with whether you’re likely to be a risk.”
Lord O’Donnell then said:
“Whether you’re blackmailable, basically, yes”.
David Cameron relied on that exchange in this House after Andy Coulson’s conviction on 25 June 2014, when he said, first—and I think, correctly—that Coulson’s security clearance was a matter for the civil service and not for the Prime Minister, and secondly, that even if Coulson had been fully DV-ed, it would not have uncovered evidence of his involvement in phone hacking.
I mention this now not to reopen the issue over Andy Coulson’s security clearance, or that of Dominic Cummings for that matter, but simply to remind Opposition Members that it is not new to have these kind of questions raised around the vetting of senior appointees. It is certainly not an issue that is specific to this Government or the particular appointment of Lord Mandelson. They would do well to remember that before they get too high on their horse in today’s debate.
Monica Harding
This really is not hard. Is it not enough to know that Lord Mandelson enjoyed the patronage of a convicted child sex offender by staying in his houses? Was that not enough to prevent his appointment as our most senior ambassador?
John Slinger
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am setting out for the House very useful context within which this debate—[Interruption.] It is useful. Hon. Members can chunter from a sedentary position, but it is useful context.
Several hon. Members rose—
John Slinger
I will not give way. I am coming to the conclusion of my remarks.
The right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) spoke somewhat mockingly of the strange coincidences of politics, given the presentation of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill earlier today. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is a man of integrity. He has shown that he believes in accountability and he acts on it. The Leader of the Opposition can reel off a list of Ministers who have been sacked, but that rather proves my point. Frankly, this is a welcome change and no matter how uncomfortable recent events have been, we are seeing, under this Prime Minister, that public officials, Ministers and yes, ambassadors are being held to higher standards than previously, and I welcome that.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Father of the House, Sir Edward Leigh.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The speech that we have just heard was absolutely risible, frankly. I will just give the hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger) some advice: do not do the Whips Office’s dirty work for them—
John Slinger
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, but I would like to give him some advice: please do not patronise me.
Sir Edward Leigh
I was just trying to give the hon. Gentleman some helpful advice, but there we are.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
I have some advice for the hon. Member for Rugby: those that lick the feet of the unworthy gain for themselves nothing but a dirty tongue. [Laughter.]
Sir Edward Leigh
Joking apart, this is a very serious moment for our country and for Parliament. Whether you like him or not, President Trump is of incredible importance to our country. He is just about to arrive here and he must think that we in this country are complete plonkers, frankly, for the way that we have handled all this. First of all, he had a very good relationship with the previous ambassador, but she was just swept aside. Then a man was appointed who had traduced him in the past. All right, that man is a skilled operator and has built up a relationship. President Trump himself is probably rather embarrassed about his relationship with Epstein, and then he finds this being dragged up all over the media a day before one of his most important visits, which is of great importance to his country and to ours. He knows that there are going to be difficult questions at the press conference. The President of the United States must be absolutely furious about what is going on, so this is a very serious moment for us and we have to take it extremely seriously. I hope—I am sure—that the Government do so.
I will repeat what I said in the urgent question on Thursday. I have seen so many of these scandals, and it is usually not the original scandal or alleged scandal that is the problem; it is the cover up. I shall try to be helpful to the Government. We have already heard from the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and it is an absurd part of our processes that if there is a monumental scandal, we have a public inquiry—where officials, Ministers, everybody must be dragged in and every document produced—but Governments can just brush aside a Select Committee. I am genuinely trying to be helpful now. Obviously a bad mistake was made, but an even worse mistake is being made if the Government are not honest with Parliament and they do not release every single document.
There are so many questions that need to be asked and that could be answered if the Government—the Foreign Office—were honest in response. Why was Mandelson chosen, given his known past associations with Epstein and his previous sackings? Were the risks merely misjudged, or did the existing vetting process fail to assess them properly? The Prime Minister claimed he did not know the full extent of the emails. We have no reason not to take him at his word. Obviously he tells the truth, but this raises serious questions about what assurances or information he received, from whom, and whether that constituted adequate due diligence. What exact checks were carried out at the appointment stage?
What was known by whom and when? If some of the unsavoury aspects of the former ambassador’s friendship with Mr Epstein were known but deemed “worth the risk”, what criteria were used to make that decision? Was the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team sufficiently rigorous? Was any personal, institutional or political bias exhibited in how risks were weighed?
The Government have stated commitments on transparency, integrity and protecting the victims of abuse or sexual violence. Having a senior representative such as an ambassador whose past communications appear to mitigate, defend or minimise a convicted child sex offender must run counter to those values. Was that considered at that stage of the vetting process? How do the Government reconcile this incident with their stated positions? Why was the appointment made knowing that there were links, but without understanding their full extent? Why was the Prime Minister publicly defending Lord Mandelson up until the revelations emerged, only to sack him in less than a day when the media pressure rose? Was he sacked for the content of what was revealed, or merely because the situation became embarrassing?
Lord Mandelson was appointed to arguably the most important diplomatic role in His Majesty’s diplomatic service. This is a time of intense international pressure, and President Trump is operating the levers of power in a way that we have rarely seen in the post-war world. What assessment have the Government made of the damage done to Britain’s diplomatic standing by having such an important ambassador removed abruptly under scandal? Light is the best disinfectant, and the public—and this House, through the Select Committee—have a right to be informed. Ministers must assure us that the full record of Lord Mandelson’s communications with Epstein will be disclosed, and soon.
We must also be told whether any of the information the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary or any other Minister provided to the public has turned out to be inaccurate, whether intentionally or in good faith. The ambassador has been sacked, but this incident is far from over. Too many questions remain unanswered. It is the obligation and the responsibility of Government to ensure that Parliament and the public are given a full and frank exposition of this matter.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
I often think it is a grave pity that the cameras in this House tend to be trained just on the individual speaking, because it means that the public did not get the opportunity that we did earlier to look at the faces of the Labour MPs as this debate began—to see the glum, serious look on their faces as they recognised the significance of the situation that faces their Prime Minister here and now. And I am sure that that glum, angry, serious look is shared not just by those here on the Treasury Bench today but by those who have been flogged in the public domain across broadcasting stations throughout the course of the last week.
The Chief Whip is no longer in his place, but I like to think that Sunday was the first occasion when he was happy to be in his new role, because he did not have to appear on the Sunday media rounds as Business Secretary to defend the indefensible and to tell us all, in the public domain, that Peter Mandelson has singular qualities that nobody else on these isles—nobody else on the planet—could possibly have that made him fitting to be the ambassador to the United States of America. What a pitiful state to find ourselves in. What a pitiful state for the Prime Minister to find himself in.
I hate to say it, but this is mired in politics, because this was a political decision by the Prime Minister. He chose to stand at the Dispatch Box last week and tell not just us but the public that there was nothing to see here—that he had absolute confidence in Lord Mandelson. It is the Prime Minister who chose to ignore the facts that were plainly in front of him, not for weeks, hours or days, but for months. He was the man who appointed Peter Mandelson to be the ambassador to the United States. Peter Mandelson told a Financial Times journalist earlier this year to “fuck off”—his quote, not mine—when he was asked about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. That was what Lord Mandelson said. He also said it was “an FT obsession”. Well, guess what? It is our obsession now, and we are going to make sure that we get to the bottom of this.
The Prime Minister is not above the scrutiny of the House of Commons; neither is he above the scrutiny of the public at home. The greatest scandal of all is the fact that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom appointed a man to that role, knowing that that man had maintained a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein despite the fact that Epstein had been convicted in 2008, in Florida, of having 14-year-old girls masturbate him. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom thought it was fitting for the best friend of that individual to hold the highest diplomatic office in the United States of America on behalf of the people of these isles. What a complete disgrace.
The only thing that seems to have caused any consternation for the Prime Minister in any of this is not that that happened, but the fact that for a short period, Peter Mandelson appeared to think Jeffrey Epstein was innocent. That draws us to the conclusion that if Peter Mandelson had maintained the friendship with Jeffrey Epstein but thought he was guilty, he would still be in post. What has happened to the moral compass of this place, and of the office of the Prime Minister, where we can simply accept a rationale such as that?
How can any victim of child sex abuse in these isles or elsewhere have confidence in the structures that we put in place when the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom—[Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven (Chris Ward), shakes his head. Does he want to intervene? Is there something he disagrees with in my assessment of those facts, or does he want to present the additional detail to this House that makes any of that untrue whatsoever? No. I notice he is not shaking his head now, but I can tell him who is shaking their head: the public—at him and his Prime Minister for the decisions they have taken.
We are going into recess. All of us are mindful of the fact that this House is shutting down. But when we come back, we expect answers. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom hopes that this is going to go away, but I and every other Member sitting in this House right now can assure him that it is not.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Colleagues—there are children in the Gallery. Let us keep our language tempered and ensure that we are being moderate in everything we say.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn). My right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) was able to outline so clearly what today is about, and what today is about is an exceptionally serious matter. We are talking about the appointment of somebody who would have to have the highest security clearance—higher than a lot of Ministers—and who would have sensitive information going across his desk. Yet, at the same time, it was known in the public domain that this individual was severely compromised. That should raise a question for everybody.
Government Back Benchers have been following today’s debate in a state of despair. I admire them for that, because they understand the gravity of the situation. As the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South mentioned, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven (Chris Ward), has done nothing but treat the debate so far with contempt. He was smirking at the Leader of the Opposition and he has been shaking his head at some of the allegations made that are in the public domain. That speaks to the apparent attitude at the heart of this Government.
I have a huge amount of respect for the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who is going to have to respond to the debate. We work closely together and he is a good man, but he has been sent to the slaughter today. This is a decision that was made around the Cabinet table. The Minister had to come to this House last week and announce that the Prime Minister had instructed the Foreign Secretary to withdraw the ambassador. Where is the Foreign Secretary? This is one of the most serious issues this House has debated in this Parliament, and once again the Government have the Minister to answer these questions.
To be fair to the Minister, many questions will be put, and he is not going to be able to answer them. That is why he has been sent here today: because he can push it off into the distance. I have nothing but respect for the Minister; we work closely together on international affairs and on NATO, and he has always been honest and up front. I know he must be dreading responding today. Maybe he can tell us when he actually knew that the ambassador had been withdrawn, because on Thursday he certainly looked like a man who was slightly worried about what he had to come into this House to do.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I have talked to my constituents, and it is a fact that in the last few days they have talked about little else. Like the leader of the SNP in this place, the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), said, this issue is not going to go away. I hope politicians realise that. It will get bigger and bigger as time goes on. To take up the point made by the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke), these questions will have to be answered—there’s no two ways about it. When the general public speak so firmly to me in that way, and to all of us, we know they speak the truth.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
Let us not shy away from what this is about: this is about a man who defended a convicted paedophile, which most people know would lead to any vetting process being failed because the person could be compromised when they have defended someone of those serious criminal offences. We know from what is in the public domain how much he was in hock to this convicted paedophile, and yet processes were overridden.
The hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger) raked up the past and, quite frankly, the resignation of a director of communications is very different from the withdrawal of an ambassador with top secret access. When the Conservatives were in government, we didn’t exactly not have our scandals and heartaches that we had to go through. I remind the House that what did for Boris Johnson as the Prime Minister was not the allegations thrown from the Labour side of the House; it was when he said to this House that he was not aware of any of the allegations made against Chris Pincher, and then it turned out that he had evidence that he was aware.
We know that this Prime Minister stood at that Dispatch Box last Wednesday and said he had not been made aware and did not have any documents, when we now know that his office had them. The question has to be answered: when did he know and how can it be shown that he did not know beforehand? The Conservatives moved against Boris Johnson as Prime Minister when it became apparent that he did know. I say to those Labour Back Benchers and those giving opinions in the press, “Do you have the courage now to move against a Prime Minister who has done exactly what the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson did in this country?” This party moved against him it became clear that that was not correct. It is said that “the buck stops here”. Well, the buck really needs to stop here.
John Slinger
The right hon. Gentleman refers to the previous Prime Minister as having conducted himself in certain ways. One of those ways was not actually having an independent ethics adviser for a period of time, whereas this Prime Minister has an independent ethics adviser and acts on their advice.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
I took that intervention because I knew the hon. Gentleman would not be able to help himself. The reality is the Prime Minister made all this thing about, “I’ve appointed an ethics adviser, I’ve done this—” and yet, when asked the very straightforward question by the BBC, “Would you sack a Minister who has broken the ethics code?” he could not answer. He obfuscated, as he always does. This is smoke and mirrors, and this is exactly the situation we find ourselves in today.
It is not good enough to say, “We didn’t know.” I come back to the fact that people who were subject to a paedophile had to watch somebody who defended that paedophile get put in one of the highest offices in the world, carrying some of the greatest secrets of state—and yet this Prime Minister said, “That’s all fine; we’ll override it.”
I do not want to go beyond the six minutes I was allowed, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will just ask these questions of the Minister—some of them have been implied.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the right hon. Member give way?
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
I am afraid I will not. I do not want to test the patience of the House—a lot of people want to speak.
The question the Minister has to answer decisively today is, “Who knew what and when?” He has to answer who made the decision to award the ambassadorship to Peter Mandelson and what lobbying took place. Any of us who have been to America working in international affairs know from meeting Karen Pierce that she is one of the most respected and capable ambassadors. It cannot be true to say that such a distinguished ambassador as Dame Karen would not have been able to carry out the task—a task for which members sitting around the Cabinet table today felt that man was worth the risk.
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
There have been some powerful speeches from both sides of the House, and it is apparent that everybody is agreed that Peter Mandelson should never have been appointed as ambassador to Washington. It matters because ambassadors are critically important to our nation. They are the leaders in projecting our soft power. They are viewed as embodiments of the United Kingdom, and it is them who influence very largely how the UK is perceived.
As has been said, we have had some really good ambassadors to the United States, going back to the late Sir Christopher Meyer, who I knew well and who did a terrific job, Lord Kim Darroch, and Dame Karen Pierce. Sometimes there have even been good political appointments. There was a certain amount of controversy when Peter Jay was appointed US ambassador—he was the son-in-law of the Prime Minister—but he did a reasonable job. Ed Llewellyn became our ambassador to Paris, and now to Rome, and has done a terrific job.
As the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), pointed out, because Ed Llewellyn’s appointment was a political one, he was interrogated by the Select Committee. As she said, the Committee, on which I serve, has attempted numerous times to have Peter Mandelson appear. We were told, in the Foreign Office’s most recent letter to the Chair, that the Committee would have the opportunity to talk to him on a visit to Washington. I was at both meetings, so I can say that the first was a briefing about the state of American politics when we first arrived, and the second was a breakfast at which he hosted opinion-formers to discuss with us what was happening in the US Capitol. At no stage did we have any opportunity to cross-examine or ask Peter Mandelson the questions that we would have asked had he appeared before the Committee. It is ridiculous to suggest that those meetings somehow compensated for his failure to appear.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
I was with the right hon. Gentleman at those Foreign Affairs Committee meetings. We should also say that there was no opportunity for us to quiz Lord Mandelson in a public setting.
Sir John Whittingdale
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It was important that we had that opportunity. Had we done so, the questions being asked now could have been asked then, and we could have explored rather more why the decision to appoint Lord Mandelson was taken—it is still causing bewilderment to a large number of people. As has been said, it is now apparent that he should never have been appointed. I will not recap what my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) and many others have said about his record, his previous resignations and his unsavoury links, all of which should have rung every alarm bell.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
My right hon. Friend is making an important contribution. Does he not agree that although there is a tendency to say that it is about what we can do in the future, this debate is about what has gone wrong in the past, about the Government’s role in it, and about the Prime Minister shouldering responsibility and taking us through what he knew?
Sir John Whittingdale
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Actually, the two are related, because we can determine the lessons learned and decide what to do in the future only if we know what went wrong this time. In order to know, we must obtain the answers to our questions.
The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee set out and ran through a number of important questions in her contribution, and we have now had an answer from the Foreign Office. She referred to the letter that was sent to her. What we know from the letter—it does not tell us much—is, first, that the Foreign Office had nothing really to do with this. It says that the appointment was carried out following the propriety and ethics committee investigation, which was carried out in the Cabinet Office. The Foreign Office was then told of that and instructed to appoint Lord Mandelson as ambassador. After his appointment was announced, the FCDO started the ambassadorial appointment process, including national security vetting.
National security vetting—deep vetting—has been referred to. We need to know what that says, but we are told by the Foreign Office that national security vetting is independent of Ministers, who are not informed of any findings other than the final outcome. Essentially, the Foreign Office appears to be saying, “Well, we were told about his past, but we were not told anything about what was uncovered, about the questions that were asked or about his answers.” Yet this is someone who already had very serious offences against him, which had caused him to resign twice, and real question marks about his record as European Commissioner and about some of his friendships. All of those questions must, one assumes, have been asked during deep vetting, yet he passed. The final outcome was, “Fine, he can be appointed.” The Foreign Office was told that but was not given any other detail.
Frankly, I find that completely astonishing. It raises even more serious questions about the deep vetting process and what it showed, and why, if Ministers were not given any detail about what the process uncovered, they did not ask any questions about it. I look forward to the Minister addressing that in his response.
Sir John Whittingdale
I give way to another fellow member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Edward Morello
The right hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the Committee’s repeated requests to meet Lord Mandelson before his appointment. He also raises the various responses that we got from the Foreign Secretary. The important fact that there were questions about the suitability of the appointment means that there must also be questions about the Prime Minister’s judgment. Did he ask to read the propriety and ethics and security vetting reports before making the appointment, and did he go ahead despite their content?
Sir John Whittingdale
The hon. Gentleman asks valid questions. We need to have the answers to them all. I know that he will join me in urging the Foreign Affairs Committee to continue pressing this case. It may well be that another body—perhaps the Liaison Committee, which has the opportunity to interrogate the Prime Minister—will also pursue these matters. As has been said several times, this will not go away. There is real anger across this House and across the country, and people will demand answers.
The Committee attempted today to try to put those questions by summoning two members of the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office, but we were told that neither was available. I can tell the House that I have some experience in summoning people who do not wish to appear before Select Committees—there is a procedure—and I hope that, when we return after recess, the Committee will pursue these matters and will require Ministers to appear, and that if they refuse, we will see what other actions can be taken.
These are very serious matters. The questions have been asked, but the answers have not been forthcoming so far. We will go on pursuing this until they are.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I assume that everyone who is bobbing wishes to contribute—there seems to be a lot of movement in the Chamber.
Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) on securing this debate. Like everyone in the Chamber, my thoughts are first and foremost with the victims of that dreadful man whose name I refuse to mention.
A week is a long time in politics. Last week, we saw the Prime Minister stand at the Dispatch Box to back, and then sack, the now former ambassador to the US. At Prime Minister’s questions last week, my party leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), questioned the Prime Minister on Lord Mandelson’s appointment. The Prime Minister stood by it, confirming that rigorous background checks had taken place.
This entire situation has left a nasty taste in the mouth, to put it mildly. The fact that the ambassador to the US—the most coveted ambassadorial position in the United Kingdom by many metrics—was seemingly okay with the moral turpitude of the man whose name I will not mention, even after his conviction, casts a long shadow on Britain’s place in the world. The timing and nature of this episode—not that it could ever be anything other than terrible—is catastrophically bad. The optics are dreadful. While we should be demonstrating moral leadership in an increasingly volatile international climate, our emissary to our closest ally has been discredited by scandal.
The President of the United States lands in this country today for his unprecedented second state visit. When the Prime Minister wines and dines him, will he take a principled stand on the matters of great importance to the people of this country? Will he press on Gaza? Will he make progress on our long awaited bespoke trade deal to insulate ourselves from Trump’s tariffs? Will he be supporting our NATO allies in making the case for better US engagement in the defence of Ukraine and shoring up Europe’s eastern flank to Russian incursions into Poland and Romania?
As if not already bad enough, this murky affair has been thickened by the fact that a source from MI6 has reportedly claimed that they failed to clear Mandelson and warned that his links to the man I refuse to name “would compromise him”. Downing Street pressed ahead with the appointment anyway. It is vital that the Civil Service Commission investigates whether the ambassador broke the diplomatic service code by failing to come clean over these revelations sooner.
If it is true, it raises wider questions about what other advice from the security services was neglected. Why did Downing Street officials fail this most basic duty? Why did the team in No. 10 send the Prime Minister out to bat sticking to the line of confidence in Mandelson, only to defenestrate the ambassador a few hours later? Why was the Prime Minister not on top of his brief? If it is the case that key details and information were withheld from the Prime Minister, why has no one been outed and swiftly given the boot?
In the late 1920s, a German philosopher called Karl Popper famously said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. It is my sincere hope that that is not the case for this Government, for whom I usually have a degree of respect. There are so many questions. We on these Benches and my constituents in Tiverton and Minehead demand answers.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
When I heard that this debate had been granted, I thought long and hard about what I could add and whether I should even take part. Many of the questions that spring to mind about the process—where, when, why, how and so on—have already been asked far more eloquently and in more detail than I could. In essence, it comes down to the fact that this was a political appointment, so the PM is the person who should carry the risk—that is the job. If it is someone else’s, we need to know who that is. Stepping back a bit, I thought, “What would the man and woman on Hinckley high street say if I talked to them about it?” They do talk about it, and it hits hard. They have many of the process questions that we have.
This seems a bit of a pyrrhic victory. I am acutely aware that the sword of hypocrisy has a blade on both sides, and swung heavily in this House, it can hit both sides equally, but it is not the wound that can kill; it is the subsequent infection. That is the problem we are seeing today. The hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger) pointed to the past and talked about context. He is right: context is important to the public in this debate, and we on the Conservative Benches are paying the price for some of the decisions that were taken before. It was not the fact that a previous Prime Minister ate cake. It was the fact that it was then covered up, and we had to come to this House following the report to say that we felt the Prime Minister had lied.
The new Prime Minister came in saying, “There will be change. There will be something different.” Those were his words. It was even on the lectern: “Plan for change”. Herein lies the problem. When the Transport Secretary was found to have committed fraud, when the anti-corruption Minister was investigated for corruption, when the homelessness Minister had to resign for making people homeless, and when the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary was found not to have paid her tax, it was not because the Prime Minister pushed them out there—it was because the media and this place did their job in holding them to account. That is the difference I am looking for today.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
Does my hon. Friend agree it is a vital point that if our right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition had not taken down the Prime Minister step by step last week, we may have gone into a recess with this scrutiny still not happening?
Dr Evans
My right hon. Friend is spot on. Respect should be given to the many people who have raised concerns, including the Leader of the Opposition, many in the media and many Back Benchers on both sides of the House.
This is my primary point: the Prime Minister said he wanted to do something different. Well, what could he do differently? He could come to this House, tell people the truth and answer the questions. There is nothing stopping him from delivering a statement, putting himself up for scrutiny and answering these questions. He could convene a Committee of the House—I am sure many would be happy to attend—to answer the questions put to him.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
The point keeps being raised about the three-week gap that is coming, but the reality is that key Select Committees can continue to investigate this issue through the recess, which they should, and could call the Prime Minister to give evidence, so that we do not wait three weeks, with the Government hoping that it dies. That is the key.
Dr Evans
My right hon. Friend is spot on.
The Prime Minister said he would do things differently. If he wants to show leadership, he could come to the Dispatch Box himself. I have a huge amount of respect for the Minister who will have to defend this situation, but he is not the decision maker—he is not the risk holder when it comes to this decision. Therein lies the point. I am sad today, because the public will look on and see that a new Prime Minister came in on a landslide majority saying he would do things differently, by his own standards that he set, and he has chosen not to. He has ignored the questions. He has answered the media, saying in his one outing, “I wouldn’t have made the decision if I knew the information.” That is not good enough to allow the public to understand.
I finish where I started: today is a pyrrhic victory—a hollow victory—but I live in hope. On the day that the Government have introduced the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, I am hopeful that the Prime Minister could still lead the change that he set out. He could still live by his own standards that he set for himself and his Government, and he could still clear up once and for all exactly what happened. I live in hope that that might be the case.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
The reality is that the Prime Minister personally decided to appoint Lord Mandelson as the ambassador to the United States, and in so doing, he has humiliated and embarrassed this nation on the international stage, because Lord Mandelson is someone who described himself as the “best pal” of a paedophile and advised that paedophile to use his time in prison as “an opportunity”—truly shocking.
There are two separate issues that require proper examination: first, the judgment of the Prime Minister, and secondly, whether he inadvertently misled the House last Wednesday in responding to the Leader of the Opposition. Let us look at the judgment of the Prime Minister. We know now that as he made the personal decision to appoint Lord Mandelson, he received a two-page document outlining some of his links to the paedophile, and yet he carried on with that decision to appoint him. He made the appointment in that knowledge. That is woefully incompetent judgment.
Last week, in the knowledge that there was a cache of emails about Lord Mandelson’s links to this paedophile, the Prime Minister made the judgment—as a lawyer who supposedly is forensic—not to ask the questions about what was in the emails. That seems to me an absolute failure of judgment. He then made the judgment to come to this House and say he had confidence in the man about whom he knew there was a cache of emails that he thought it inappropriate to ask the detail of. The whole point of lawyers and barristers is that they do due diligence, but no—not our Prime Minister.
That brings me to the critical issue of whether the Prime Minister inadvertently misled the House. He said two things to the Leader of the Opposition. First, he said twice that he had “confidence in” Lord Mandelson, and yet he knew the day before about a cache of emails, which he did not want to know the detail of, on Lord Mandelson’s links to Epstein. The day after, the Prime Minister fired Lord Mandelson. Is it credible to believe that one can have confidence in a man, given those two facts that came about within a 24-hour period?
Secondly, even more significantly, the Prime Minister said that “full due process” had been “followed during this appointment”. We now learn that that is not the case, because the due process was carried out after the decision by the Prime Minister to appoint Lord Mandelson and after it had been announced to the world at large. Those two things cannot be true. Either full due process was carried out before the decision to appoint, or it was carried out afterwards—it was not carried out “during”.
For that reason, regrettably, I conclude personally that the Prime Minister inadvertently misled the House of Commons and the British people. Therefore, the Prime Minister needs to come to the House and give absolute clarity on what he knew and when, why he made those decisions, and why he chose not to ask for detailed forensic investigations at the appropriate time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I remind Members to temper their speeches. We do not, at any point, accuse other Members of dishonesty. I know that the next Member to speak will get that right.
Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
On rare moments, Members on both sides of the House come to the Chamber with the same question on their minds: how did it get to this? The Prime Minister is proud of his record as Director of Public Prosecutions and of his skill to prosecute, interrogate and investigate—skills that are absent here. He will also be more than familiar with the basic legal principle of caveat emptor—buyer beware. That can be translated across the board to many scenarios and, in essence, means that we have to do our research and ask pointed questions.
On that point, the Prime Minister exposed himself in interviews yesterday. He claimed that he did not know the content of the Bloomberg emails, yet he knew that they existed—where was the inquiry? He knew that an investigation had been launched by the Foreign Office, but not the content—where was the inquiry? He was waiting for answers from the disgraced ambassador, even though we understand that his chief of staff was in contact with him for much of the previous day—where was the inquiry? Given the knowledge that such outstanding questions remained unanswered, anyone—not just a lawyer—would have drawn breath and paused before giving such a vote of confidence in the ambassador during PMQs. It was wilful ignorance at best, or political belligerence at worst.
The Prime Minister now says:
“Had I known then what I know now, I’d have never appointed him”.
The former Foreign Secretary said:
“The truth is all the issues were weighed and in that time it was known that Peter Mandelson had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, but the scale and extent of that was only known last Wednesday evening when the prime minister surveyed those emails.”
We understand, however, that the Foreign Office contacted No. 10 on Tuesday and that an investigation was opened. Something does not add up.
There is such a lack of clarity on this matter, and where there is a lack of clarity, we need transparency. A proper due diligence exercise relies on the disclosure given, as the Prime Minister will be well aware from his practice. It is time to disclose. I am therefore sure that the Government will oblige the request of the Leader of the Opposition to provide the House with all correspondence and documents in the Mandelson files.
The matter, however, goes beyond judgment calls made by the Prime Minister and the previous Foreign Secretary, given that both are involved in the appointment of ambassadors; it is also a matter of ethics. What is deemed acceptable behaviour for those in positions of power? The Nolan principles are integral to all of us who serve the public: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. Those principles apply as much to the former ambassador as to the Prime Minister. Under “Leadership”, the principles state:
“Holders of public office should…actively promote and robustly support the principles and challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.”
Given the known record of Peter Mandelson, even before the details of the Bloomberg emails came to light, does the Prime Minister believe that that principle has been met? On that basis, will the Prime Minister be referring himself and others involved in the appointment process to the independent ethics adviser?
The role of ambassador in Washington is a crucial one, entrusted with the most sensitive information and shaping our reputation on the world stage. It is not too much to ask that its appointee embodies the highest standards.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
Let us be crystal clear: this emergency debate is about honesty, integrity and the credibility of this Labour Government. It is about what the Prime Minister knew about Lord Mandelson’s links to Jeffrey Epstein, and when he knew it. The public deserve the truth, but instead they have been treated to evasion, delay and, as my constituents have been clear, a cover-up.
The decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to the US was extraordinary. The links between Mandelson and Epstein were well known, as we have heard this afternoon. The vetting process surely should have raised red flags, yet the Prime Minister—yes, the Prime Minister—oversaw the appointment. Where is he today? He is perhaps happier to talk to the BBC than at the Dispatch Box.
The Prime Minister told us himself that he had “confidence in” Lord Mandelson, even as the questions mounted and the damning Bloomberg emails were about to surface. That surely was not an accident; it was a choice, and one that goes to the heart of the Prime Minister’s judgment.
Let us remind ourselves what the emails revealed: Mandelson offering words of support to a convicted paedophile. Those were not casual contacts but sustained and deeply troubling links. Yet when the Prime Minister was pressed on what he knew, his story shifted: first, perhaps ignorance; then an awareness of media inquiries; and then the claim that he had not seen the contents of the emails until the last moment. All the while, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff was in touch with Lord Mandelson for “much of the day” before PMQs. Which is it? The House deserves answers to the most basic questions about a scandal engulfing the Prime Minister and his former ambassador.
The lapse is not isolated, however. Two of the Prime Minister’s most senior appointments have unravelled in recent weeks. It seems to me that Labour likes to lecture us all about integrity, but in little more than a year in office it is mired in scandal, putting loyalty to insiders ahead of the basic decency that the public rightly expect.
While the Government tie themselves in knots, our country faces grave challenges. Last week, Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace, testing NATO’s resolve. Bond rates here at home have hit their highest level in 30 years. Illegal migrant boat crossings reached record numbers in 2025. In the west midlands, bin strikes roll into their sixth month, while Labour MPs from that city and region sit silent. In my constituency, swathes of our precious green belt are under siege because of Labour’s planning reforms. Those are the issues that my constituents expect this place to be focused on. Instead, the Prime Minister is distracted by a scandal of his own making.
To get back to the central question, what must happen now? I think the answer is simple. The Mandelson-Epstein files must be released in full, urgently and without caveats. That means the two-page vetting document and the evidence behind it; all correspondence between the chief of staff and Lord Mandelson; the communications between the Foreign Office, No.10 and our embassy in Washington about the Bloomberg files; and any other documents presented to the Prime Minister in making the appointment. This House and the public we serve have a right to see them.
Recess will be upon us within hours, but this scandal cannot and must not be sent into recess in the hope that this failing Government can sweep it under the carpet. The longer that Labour refuses to publish the files, the more damning the conclusion becomes, and the more damaging it is to democracy in our country and to the trust of the public.
The Labour party went into last year’s election on a slogan of change, but every day it is demonstrating that it is change for the worse. At a moment when we should be projecting clarity, strength and integrity on the world stage, we are instead led by a Prime Minister who is distracted by scandal and paralysed by poor judgment. It is time to end the rumour, publish the files and finally put the country before narrow party interests—nothing less will do.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
I want to use the few minutes that I have to focus on how it could be that, just last Wednesday, the Prime Minister of this country came to tell this House that he had “confidence” in Lord Mandelson, the friend of the paedophile, in his role as a key ambassador for the Government. The Prime Minister said that not once but twice, when the Leader of the Opposition rightly asked him, declaring:
“I have confidence in him”,
and
“I have confidence in the ambassador”.—[Official Report, 10 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 860.]
Those were his ringing endorsements of Lord Mandelson.
I want to examine the circumstances that then prevailed when he said that he had confidence in Lord Mandelson. What is confidence? Confidence is having trust, faith and belief in someone. That is what the Prime Minister was telling this House in respect of Lord Mandelson last Wednesday, yet by Monday it was a matter of public knowledge that the Bloomberg emails had been published.
The Prime Minister has since made some startling claims. He said that when he was answering Prime Minister’s questions he knew that questions were being asked, but he knew only about media inquiries about the emails and that questions were being put to Lord Mandelson. Our Prime Minister is a King’s Counsel. The natural instinct of a lawyer is to interrogate, and the training of a lawyer is to equip them to interrogate. However, this House is being told that when the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and said “I have confidence” in Lord Mandelson, even though he knew that questions were being asked, he did not interrogate them for himself or ask about what was being asked. When he told the House that he knew that there were media inquiries about emails, we are being asked to believe that he did not ask, “What emails? What did they say?”
Dr Luke Evans
The hon. and learned Gentleman is making a fantastic speech. The Prime Minister said that he had “confidence in the ambassador”. He did not say “pending investigation or a suspension”, “I’ll look into it” or “I’ll follow process”, but “I have confidence.” Why does the hon. and learned Gentleman think that the Prime Minister did not say that he would look into the situation seriously, and instead said from the Dispatch Box specifically that he had “confidence”?
Jim Allister
That is the most troubling thing about this. Equipped with the knowledge that he inevitably had—Monday night’s publication, and the knowledge that questions had been asked and that there were media inquiries about the emails—the credibility of the House is stretched to be asked to believe that the Prime Minister, a trained lawyer, never interrogated any of that and never asked, “What emails? What did they say? What questions have we asked?” We are asked to believe that he came to the House blind to all of that.
Not only in the appointment of Lord Mandelson do we see serious flaws in the judgment of the Prime Minister. If it is truly the situation, that he came to the House with a limited but uninterrogated knowledge of these matters, then that raises further questions about his judgment. I fear that this House has many answers yet to receive. It is a matter of regret to me, as it is to other hon. Members, that the Prime Minister is not here today to answer those demanding, alarming yet simple questions: they are questions that go not only to the heart of the Prime Minister’s confidence in Lord Mandelson, but to the question of whether this House, and this people, can have confidence in the Prime Minister.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
The UK has a proud tradition of appointing career civil servants as ambassadors. Our senior diplomatic service is respected worldwide and, while travelling with the Foreign Affairs Committee this year, I have heard high praise for our “Rolls-Royce civil service”. It is professional, reliable and globally respected.
One strength of the British civil service lies in the clear separation between politicians and officials. Since the Northcote and Trevelyan report of 1854, civil service impartiality has been a sine qua non of a permanent civil service, and the reputation of the British Government depends upon it. That rigid distinction has served us well across the decades and applies in the staffing of our most senior diplomatic posts.
There have been occasional exceptions. For example, Baron Llewellyn of Steep, the former chief of staff to Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton when he was Prime Minister, was appointed ambassador to France in 2016 and now serves now as His Majesty’s ambassador to Italy. He gained experience with Chris Patten in Hong Kong—later Baron Patten—and then with Lord Ashdown when he was high representative for Bosnia, so he plainly has enormous international experience. Crucially, shortly after the political appointment of Baron Llewellyn was made, he was called to the Foreign Affairs Committee in 2017 to give evidence.
Let us contrast the British way with how the United States makes its ambassadorial appointments. It is common for American Presidents to reward political donors or allies with ambassadorial posts. Donald Trump’s choice for new ambassador to London is a case in point: he is an investment banker and a donor to the Republican party, not a career diplomat. By 3 September, Donald Trump had appointed 67 ambassadors in his second term, 61 of whom—more than 90%—are political appointees.
In the United States, such appointments are subject to public scrutiny. Every US ambassador must first appear before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, submitting detailed disclosures on their background, finances and potential conflicts of interest, before facing direct questioning in a public hearing. In the United States, only after that confirmation hearing does the nomination proceed to the full Senate, where a confirmation vote is required. That ensures a level of transparency and accountability that is absent from the UK system.
Our system is set up for the appointment of senior civil servants, who receive vetting on a rolling basis. The Foreign Affairs Committee was not afforded the opportunity to question Lord Mandelson, either in public before his appointment or subsequentially. With the appointment of Lord Mandelson, we saw neither the professionalism of the appointment of a British civil servant nor the scrutiny associated with political appointees in the US system.
We should also look hard at what has happened in US-UK relations since Lord Mandelson took up his post last December. On Ukraine, Lord Mandelson’s line was arguably closer to the US than to the UK, prior to his appointment as ambassador. He spoke frivolously on the Kuenssberg programme about
“whatever happens to the fringes of Ukraine territory”.
That was not the British Government’s position. In March this year, after his appointment, Mandelson said that President Zelensky should be
“more supportive of US peace efforts”.
Those remarks were so out of step that Ministers were forced to clarify that the comments did not reflect British Government policy.
On the middle east, we know that the UK and US Governments have taken different approaches to the conflict, which leaves us wondering in what circumstances the UK position has not been portrayed correctly in Washington DC.
Trade is another area of concern. On 1 April, I gave the First Reading of the UK-USA Trade Agreements (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Bill, a ten-minute rule Bill arguing for stronger parliamentary scrutiny of any trade deal. While parliamentary scrutiny of any transatlantic partnership with the United States is essential, it is also essential with appointments to the role of ambassador. My instinct is that the UK ambassador to the US should be a professional British civil servant or an official.
David Davis
The hon. Member has made a theoretical argument and a general argument, but the actual argument is that Karen Pierce was a brilliant campaigner who would never have made the mistakes made by Lord Mandelson, which he alludes to, and she should not have been replaced.
Richard Foord
I agree wholeheartedly. I commend the right hon. Gentleman on calling this debate in the first place, and he is right. It was rumoured that Karen Pierce wanted to or was at least willing to stay on in post for another year, and she would have represented us in an excellent manner, which we know was characteristic of her.
The Prime Minister has extensive powers to appoint senior officials. Usually the civil service commissioners lead this process to ensure that the selection is on the basis of merit. The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, or CRaG, allows the Prime Minister to bypass that check on his power, and in this case it has had disastrous consequences.
As I conclude, I have two questions for the Minister. Will the Government give a commitment that in future any political appointment to a senior diplomatic role will go before the Foreign Affairs Committee for scrutiny before the appointment is confirmed? Will the Government amend section 10(2) of CRaG to ensure that diplomats, like senior civil servants, are appointed on the basis of merit and “fair and open competition”?
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
I thank and congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) on securing this emergency debate.
The focus of the debate thus far has been primarily on three areas: the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s appalling crimes, the conduct of Lord Mandelson prior to his being appointed and the judgment of the Prime Minister in both appointing and firing Lord Mandelson as the British ambassador to Washington. Quite rightly, in this debate the House has focused on those three areas, but I will add a fourth area that I find as chilling as the other three. Since December last year, our ambassador in Washington has been potentially subject to leverage and blackmail, because someone—we do not know who—had politically fatal kompromat on Lord Mandelson throughout his whole time in office.
I am amazed that the Foreign Office has not gone into full lockdown and damage limitation mode, having found out that potentially Lord Mandelson could have been blackmailed this entire time. If it had turned out that he had been an agent of a foreign state, the Foreign Office would have done that. All it knows now is that someone—we do not know who—had politically fatal kompromat on him that whole time.
The hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) talked about some of the behaviours of Lord Mandelson in office, and that is the bit I am concerned about. I do not know whether the Minister is aware that Sir Ben Wallace gave an interview to Times Radio recently in which he said that Lord Mandelson had been lobbying No. 10 Downing Street on behalf of a single defence manufacturer for Britain to buy an unmanned military set of equipment—a major buy—without a competition, bypassing UK small and medium-sized enterprises and expertise. I will not put two and two together, but it seems extraordinary that someone who was meant to be promoting British interests overseas was instead promoting US defence capability to No. 10. We buy a lot of good kit from America, of course, but the absence of a competition skews the pitch and is odd behaviour.
I hope that when the Minister gets an opportunity to speak, he will talk about what measures No. 10 and the Foreign Office are taking to examine every single thing that Lord Mandelson did when he was our ambassador, in order to establish the extent to which the politically fatal kompromat had skewed his judgment and driven his behaviour.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
The now former ambassador to the United States has been sacked due to the nature of his relationship with a convicted paedophile—a relationship that has come as no surprise to anybody except the Prime Minister, it would appear. The Prime Minister and the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), knew of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein, yet his appointment was felt to be worth the risk. That is despite warnings from President Trump’s co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita, who criticised the replacement of the former ambassador, Dame Karen Pierce, as replacing a
“professional universally respected ambo with an absolute moron”.
Even the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who was effusive in her praise for Lord Mandelson, asked for him to come before her Committee to
“allow my colleagues to hear directly why the Prime Minister has appointed him”.—[Official Report, 14 January 2025; Vol. 760, c. 143.]
With her face pressed up against the Cabinet Room window like Tiny Tim out in the cold, I am surprised that she could be heard, but the Minister for the Overseas Territories, who is looking sheepish in his place on the Front Bench, was emphatic. He stated:
“We are absolutely convinced that Lord Mandelson will do an excellent job as our representative in Washington”.—[Official Report, 14 January 2025; Vol. 760, c. 143.]
Yet that whole time, the Government were aware of the security warnings that Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein crossed the line of what is acceptable and failed to meet the standard expected of what is arguably our most critical ambassadorial appointment.
The President of the United States arrives for his second state visit tomorrow, yet we now suffer the embarrassment and indignity of having had to sack our ambassador for his proximity to a man found guilty of soliciting prostitution from a child—a man whose girlfriend was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking, conspiracy and transportation of a minor for illegal sexual activity. Indeed, an aspect of this matter that remains unclear is the nature of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell. The New York Times has described this issue as “a stinging embarrassment” that
“casts a shadow over the planned state visit”.
How has the Prime Minister allowed this to happen, ignoring the advice from his security assessment to appoint him anyway, embracing the risk then having it blow up in his face?
Prior to entering Parliament, I worked for Barclays bank. In 2021, the bank’s CEO Jes Staley resigned amid a regulatory probe into whether he mischaracterised his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. I actually raised a complaint with my managers, which was roundly ignored and never advanced beyond managing director level, such was the squeamishness that surrounded the story. I was furious that Barclays still paid Staley his £2.4 million salary and £120,000 pension contribution while being defenestrated for his relationship with Epstein. That is not privileged information—it was widely reported—yet while the financial world saw fit to wash its hands of Staley, this Labour Government welcomed Lord Mandelson with open arms.
Those linked to Jeffrey Epstein who maintained a relationship with him after his conviction and who many times visited his island, where the crimes took place, have long since been deplatformed and deemed too toxic to hold positions of power, yet the hubris of the Prime Minister saw him ride roughshod over such glaringly obvious concerns. Being the Prime Minister is to take the mantle of the UK’s decision-maker-in-chief; it is to own the responsibility of making not just difficult decisions, but the most difficult decisions. Appointing an ambassador to the United States is not the political banana skin that should bring down the Government, yet here we are. The Government are teetering on the brink.
Yesterday the Prime Minister gingerly began climbing down over his handling of the Mandelson sacking. When he came to the Chamber last Wednesday, he robustly defended Lord Mandelson and played to the baying crowd. He even had the chutzpah to claim that the Conservative party has a leadership contest going on—was it not interesting to see him in the Smoking Room last night between votes? [Laughter.] Last Wednesday, the Prime Minister stated that
“full due process was followed during this appointment”.—[Official Report, 10 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 859.]
He said that twice. If that is true, the Prime Minister knew the full scope of Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. If he did not know and new information subsequently came to light, either the vetting standards of the Government are incompetent or the claim of “full due process” is inaccurate. The Prime Minister also said that
“I have confidence in the ambassador”.—[Official Report, 10 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 860.]
He said that twice, too.
The Prime Minister’s explanation yesterday stated that there were three reasons for his tergiversation:
“The nature and extent of the relationship being far different to what I’d understood to be the position at the point of appointment, the questioning and challenging of the conviction, which…goes to the heart and cuts across what this government is doing on violence against women and girls and the unsatisfactory nature of responses from Peter Mandelson last week to the inquiries made of him by government officials – I took the decision to remove him.”
Can the Government lay out precisely what was the full due process that was followed? The Prime Minister claims that he did not learn the content of the Bloomberg emails until after his robust defence at PMQs, so did Lord Mandelson fail to disclose that information during his vetting interview? Was there even a vetting interview, or did Lord Mandelson disclose everything and the Prime Minister is displaying wilful ignorance?
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
The hon. Member’s speech reminds me of an earlier episode in UK-US relations, when Donald Rumsfeld referred to known knowns, unknown unknowns and known unknowns. While the Government might be forgiven for not holding Peter Mandelson to account for unknown unknowns, does he agree that it is unforgivable that they have staked Britain’s diplomatic relationship with the US on known unknowns?
Ben Obese-Jecty
I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member. It is incredible that the Government have engaged in such lax vetting regarding such an obvious conflict of interest.
On the nature and extent of the relationship, we knew about Mandelson’s closeness to Jeffrey Epstein when the notorious birthday book was published, in which Lord Mandelson described the convicted paedophile as his “best pal” and signed off his many pages of unctuous praise with the line “yum yum”. What else did the Prime Minister learn beyond that? He claims that he knew only of Mandelson’s “association” with Jeffrey Epstein—that would appear to be questionable.
Turning to Lord Mandelson’s questioning and challenging of the conviction, was he asked his opinion of the conviction of his “best pal” during his vetting interview? Did Lord Mandelson disclose that he felt, or had ever felt, that the conviction was unjustified? Either he was not asked, in which case the vetting was incompetent; he did not disclose it, in which case he was not a suitable appointment; or he did disclose it, and it was ignored by the Prime Minister. Which is it?
The unsatisfactory nature of the responses is the only aspect of the investigation we are yet to learn about. The Prime Minister must publish the new information, so that this House can fully understand. If Lord Mandelson’s answers are unsatisfying now, but were not before, that suggests that full due process was not followed, in contradiction to what the Prime Minister claimed last week.
This whole sorry episode looks set to derail the visit of the President of the United States tomorrow. We are a long way from the chummy bonhomie of the Prime Minister feeling that he had stuck the landing with his perfectly stage-managed hand delivery of an invitation letter to President Trump. I wonder how he is going to explain all this to the President tomorrow. The Prime Minister knows that his days are numbered; those in his new Cabinet know his days are numbered; his Back Benchers know his days are numbered—perhaps he should try talking to them on a regular basis, not just greasing up to them in the Smoking Room when he needs their support. If the Prime Minister cannot exercise the judgment required of his office, he must resign.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
That is the end of the Back-Bench contributions. Colleagues who have spoken should be making their way back to the Chamber.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
On Thursday, I came to this House to announce that the Prime Minister had asked the Foreign Secretary to withdraw Lord Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the United States. At the outset, may I say—there were many comments to this effect from across the House—that all of us are appalled by Epstein’s crimes, and all those who have suffered as a result need to be at the forefront of our minds today.
I also thank a number of right hon. and hon. Members for what I think were genuine suggestions about scrutiny of processes in relation to ambassadorial appointments. In particular, the Government have listened to the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), on this matter, and we will consider all options to support the Committee in its work in future.
Stephen Doughty
I will not give way at first. I need to respond to many of the points that have been made in the debate, after which I will happily take some interventions.
The Prime Minister took this decision after new information showed that the nature and extent of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was materially different from what was known at the time of his appointment. In particular, Lord Mandelson suggested that Epstein’s conviction was wrongful, encouraged him to fight for early release, and said that Epstein had been through “years of torture”. We know that the only people tortured were the women and girls whose lives were destroyed by Epstein’s heinous crimes. I associate myself with the remarks that a number of right hon. and hon. Members made on that point, both about the crimes and the victims.
Stephen Flynn
Is the Minister effectively telling the House that Lord Mandelson retaining his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein despite him being a paedophile was fine, and that the only problem was that Lord Mandelson thought that Jeffrey Epstein was innocent? Is the Minister conveying the message to the public that if Lord Mandelson had not sent those emails and had said to the Prime Minister that Jeffrey Epstein was guilty, that would not have been a problem?
Stephen Doughty
The Prime Minister has been explicitly clear that the new information was not compatible with the duty that we owe to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s horrendous crimes against women and girls, and with this Government’s clear commitment to tackling that kind of violence and abuse. As such, the Prime Minister took decisive action to withdraw Lord Mandelson as ambassador. He has also been clear—he undertook a number of media interviews yesterday—that Lord Mandelson would not have been appointed if all the information we now have was available at the time. I point the House to what the Prime Minister had to say yesterday:
“Had I known then what I know now, I’d have never appointed him.”
Following Lord Mandelson’s departure and in line with standard diplomatic practice, the deputy head of mission, James Roscoe—an experienced and capable diplomat—has been put in place as the chargé d’affaires.
Dr Evans
The Minister is doing a fair job, but I have one simple question for him: why is he, not the Prime Minister, in the Chamber answering the House’s questions? The Minister clearly cannot answer them—no disrespect to him. The Prime Minister said that he did not know something, but now he knows something. Where is the Prime Minister, and why is he not at the Dispatch Box?
Stephen Doughty
I am in the Chamber responding for the Government as the Minister for North America. The hon. Gentleman will understand that there are very important matters taking place today that the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary are involved with. We have also seen the new Hillsborough law launched today, which has been referenced during the debate.
Stephen Doughty
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman in short order, but first I want to say something about our excellent diplomats and officials across the world.
We have an excellent team at the British embassy in Washington—indeed, we have had many excellent ambassadors, and we have a wide network across the United States, not just in Washington—and in King Charles Street. I pay tribute to them and all the work they are doing, particularly in supporting the outcomes of this week’s important and historic state visit. I associate myself totally with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) about their professionalism, which I know has been experienced by many Members across the House. It is important that we put that on the record. This is a crucial moment for UK-US relations; together, we are focused on delivering on jobs, growth and security for people on both sides of the Atlantic.
I said that I would give way to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), so I will.
Sir Julian Lewis
Given that the Minister is such a decent Minister, who enjoys respect on both sides of the House, I am tempted to repeat the advice that Lloyd George gave to Churchill during the Norway debate of 1940, which is not to make himself an air raid shelter to protect his colleagues—in this case, the Prime Minister—from the splinters. If the Prime Minister’s case is as strong as the Minister makes out, can he explain why, if I remember correctly, only a single Labour Back Bencher has made a speech in the Prime Minister’s favour?
Stephen Doughty
With respect, this is an emergency debate that was secured by the Opposition. I am in the Chamber setting out the case very clearly, and we have had a number of contributions from Labour Members. The right hon. Member knows that I and Members from across the House have affection for him and the work he does, including his previous roles chairing many important Committees of this House.
Many right hon. and hon. Members have asked a number of specific questions, including about the vetting process and security clearances that applied in this particular case. I fully understand the interest in those questions, and undoubtedly other questions will be raised over the course of discussions in this place. As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is the practice of successive Administrations—including precedents from the last Government—not to comment on which officials have access to confidential information. That remains the case today.
I want to pay particular attention to this matter, because it is important and because Members present have asked very sensible questions. The national security vetting process is confidential, and the UK Government’s vetting charter includes an undertaking to protect personal data and other information in the strictest confidence. I am not going to depart from that approach in this Chamber today and release personal information about an individual’s confidential vetting. However, while I will not talk about the confidential details relating to this case, I can provide details of the overall processes that a number of people have asked about, including the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis), who opened the debate.
Prior to the announcement of Lord Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador, the propriety and ethics team in the Cabinet Office undertook a due diligence process, and after his appointment was announced on 20 December 2024, the FCDO started the ambassadorial appointment process, including national security vetting. That vetting process was undertaken by UK Security Vetting on behalf of the FCDO, and concluded with clearance being granted by the FCDO in advance of Lord Mandelson taking up his post in February.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
I accept that private data cannot be disclosed, but is there a mechanism by which the Minister can ask the Intelligence and Security Committee to look into the question of whether somebody—a civil servant, for example—who was known to have had a close association with a convicted paedophile would have passed the vetting process to hold such a sensitive position? That could be something that the Minister passes on to the ISC to look at, because it goes to the heart of the situation. I very much doubt that a person with that sort of association would be given the highest security clearance.
Stephen Doughty
I know the right hon. Gentleman makes that point with sincerity, but I will not comment on the national security vetting process. That would not be appropriate or in line with being consistent from Government to Government.
Stephen Doughty
I will not give way; the hon. Gentleman was not here for the debate and he has just popped up now to try to intervene.
National security vetting is a long-standing formal process undertaken by UK Security Vetting on behalf of individual Departments, and it reports back to them. It helps Departments to identify and manage risks where individuals have access to sensitive assets or sites, and there are established processes within national security vetting to consider any security concerns raised and to manage such risks appropriately. Importantly, the national security vetting process is rightly independent of Ministers, who are not informed of any findings other than the final outcome. Exactly the same procedures were followed in this case.
Stephen Doughty
I will make a little more progress and then will happily give way.
To return to the fundamental question that has been asked by many Members, as I said at the start, in the light of new information, the Prime Minister made the decision to withdraw Lord Mandelson as ambassador. The Prime Minister took decisive action on these issues, and now the Government’s focus is seizing the opportunities of our US partnership as we look forward to the next phase of government, moving from fixing the foundations to driving forward growth and national renewal.
A lot of Members asked sensible questions about the relationship with the United States, our economy, our security and the state visit that is happening this week. I point the House to the fact that last week we secured and announced a £400 million contract with Google Cloud, boosting secure communications between the UK and US and building new intelligence capabilities for the UK armed forces. On Sunday, we announced more than £1.2 billion of private US investment in the UK’s world-leading financial services sector, and that new investment will create 1,800 new jobs across the UK and boost benefits for millions of customers. [Interruption.] Just yesterday, we announced a new UK-US partnership on civil nuclear power as part of our drive to put billions of pounds of private investment into clean energy, and I look forward to further announcements over the coming days.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I can barely hear the Minister speak.
Stephen Doughty
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I have taken a number of interventions, and I do want to make some progress.
Hon. and right hon. Members have asked about the US-UK relationship. I can tell them that it is strong, thriving and growing. The steps that I have mentioned will ensure that our two nations continue to lead the world in innovation. We have trade worth more than £315 billion last year, and the US and UK economies are inextricably linked. Through the state visit, we will take that relationship even further, making trade and investment deals that will benefit hard-working families across these countries and regions.
Richard Tice
Last week, the Prime Minister expressed confidence in Lord Mandelson. This week, does the Minister express his confidence in national security vetting?
Stephen Doughty
Of course I have confidence in our national security vetting staff. They do incredibly important work keeping this country safe. I will not comment on individual cases—I have been clear about that. I will return to the fundamental question asked by the hon. Member and others.
Emily Thornberry
Will the Minister help us with this? In the letter that the new Foreign Secretary wrote to me, she said that the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team conducted a due diligence process at the request of No. 10 prior to the announcement of the appointment, and that the FCDO was not asked to contribute to that process and no issues were raised with the FCDO as a result of it. Now that the Minister has heard that, is he surprised that the Foreign Office was not involved?
Stephen Doughty
I have set out the process clearly, and I note that the Chair of the Select Committee has received that letter, which also sets it out clearly. She may have slightly missed the commitment that I made to her and to members of her Committee at the start of the debate, which was about considering all options to support the Committee in its work on pre-scrutiny processes. She makes an important and sensible point.
Stephen Doughty
I am going to conclude, and I do want to get back to the fundamental question.
The Prime Minister has made it clear that Lord Mandelson should not and would not have been appointed as ambassador in the light of the shocking information that came to light in the past week. The argument that we have heard from Opposition Members today is that the information was clear all along. But if the full depth and extent of this relationship had been so obvious, I hardly think that Lord Mandelson would have been one of the leading candidates to become chancellor of Oxford University—but he was. I highly doubt that he would have been offered a job as a presenter on Times Radio—but he was. He also appeared on BBC “Newsnight”, a programme that has done important work investigating the crimes of—
Sir Desmond Swayne
It is. Am I mistaken in my belief that there is a convention in the House that when the Leader of the Opposition puts their hand on the Dispatch Box and seeks to intervene, the Minister gives way?
Madam Deputy Speaker
That is not a matter for the Chair. It is entirely up to the Minister if he wishes to give way or not.
Stephen Doughty
I was making an important point about the scrutiny of Jeffrey Epstein conducted by BBC’s “Newsnight”; such serious questions might have been asked of Lord Mandelson, but to my recollection none were. [Interruption.] Indeed, I am glad that the Leader of the Opposition wants to intervene, because I have a question for her. She and the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), as well as other Opposition Members, have raised questions today, but did they say a word in this House about Lord Mandelson’s appointment before last Wednesday? I do not have any record of that. In fact, the record shows that they did not raise it and they did not ask questions. The reality is that in the light of new information, the Prime Minister has acted decisively.
Mrs Badenoch
We did not need any new information to know that it was an unsuitable appointment. The Minister is making a doughty defence of Lord Mandelson, but the truth is that this debate has been about the Prime Minister’s judgment. When I was a Secretary of State and questions were asked about judgment, I did not send junior Ministers to answer my questions; I faced the House and I explained what had happened. The Prime Minister is not doing so. Will the Minister commit now to answering all the questions that I asked in writing? Will he also take this opportunity to apologise to the victims? He has not done so and the Government have not done so. The debate is nearly over. Will he take this opportunity to apologise to the victims for the appointment of Lord Mandelson?
Stephen Doughty
Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition was not in her seat at the start of the debate, because I made very clear our position on Epstein’s victims and our horror at the revelations, and said that all our thoughts are with them. I did that in sincerity in response to the points that have been made across this House, and I say that again. However, she could not answer my question. She did not raise this issue before last Wednesday. If it was all so obvious, why did not she do that?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I hope it is a proper point of order.
Dr Evans
I would hate for the Minister to mislead the House inadvertently, because I raised the examples earlier of Sky News and of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns), who raised concerns about Mr Mandelson. Even in this debate, we heard evidence of what the Opposition have been doing, including talking about the inappropriateness of this ambassador back in May.
Stephen Doughty
I was referring to whether this matter had been raised in the House by the Leader of the Opposition and others.
The Prime Minister acted decisively in response to the new information, which is exactly what should have happened. The former ambassador has been withdrawn. The Prime Minister and the Government are focused on deepening our special relationship with the United States in the interests of people across the Atlantic for jobs, growth, prosperity, security and our defence. That relationship with the United States is a relationship that has endured, is enduring, and will endure for the prosperity and security of our peoples well into the future.
David Davis
I am going to pause for a second. Let me say first to the Minster that I think everyone who spoke remembered the victims. After the sound of this political gunfire is long forgotten, they will still be suffering the scarring of what happened to them as a result of Mr Epstein’s behaviour, and I would say to the Minister that, without U-turns or whatever, he should say to his Prime Minister that at the next possible opportunity, at that Dispatch Box, he should apologise to those victims for what the Government have done to date.
Secondly, let me say to the Minister that he is highly respected in the House. I see him almost as the last Spartan at Thermopylae, full of arrows as he stands there trying to defend an impossible position. It is a position in which a number of us have been ourselves, so I have some sympathy for him. The simple truth is, however, that I found it very hard to reconcile what he said about this clearance process with what I know was known by the agencies as long ago as 2008 about Mandelson’s behaviour, connections and the like, and the clear possibility of kompromat, to which one of my hon. Friends referred.
There seem to be two possibilities. What often happens with direct vetting is that the agencies produce a series of risks for a Minister, and the Minister—in this case the Prime Minister, I assume—decides that those risks are worth taking. That is one possibility. The other possibility is that the vetting process was completely broken, and somehow or other it did not detect all those things that were in plain sight. That strikes me as implausible. I am afraid that what this Minister has told the House does not seem to figure, especially when it is added to what was said by the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee about the report from the propriety and ethics team being produced effectively without the FCDO’s input, which is—again—absolutely astonishing.
The House itself has been remarkably unanimous, with one exception. The Leader of the Opposition made a characteristically sharply focused speech, and she made a number of comments with which, almost uniquely, the leader of every other party here agreed. She said that we needed the information and we needed the accountability. What does that mean? It means something that was highlighted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton): we need the release of all the documents. There is no need to hide behind security, because there is no national interest security issue. The issue is whether the system is working, and we cannot know unless we see those documents. We need the Ministers involved, and the advisers involved, to appear before the relevant Select Committees and to answer questions on this matter—and, if the Minister wants to hide behind security, they can even do that in camera, as long as it is done properly and they have the opportunity to test some of these assertions.
The Minister and others received a great deal of good advice from a number of people, most notably the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), but from others too. They said that these problems are bad enough when they are to do with the original error, but they get worse in the cover-up. They get worse if people do not actually admit what has happened. Honesty is not just important in this; it is also a survival characteristic for the Ministers involved.
As I said, the Minister is the last Spartan at Thermopylae. He has not been sent here with the weapons to deal with this. He has not been sent here with the answers to the questions that we all properly have. I will finish as I started, by reminding him about that Bill that the Government announced today. On the Order Paper it is described as a
“Bill to impose a duty on public authorities and public officials to act with candour, transparency and frankness; to make provision for the enforcement of that duty in their dealings with inquiries and investigations; to require public authorities to promote and take steps to maintain ethical conduct within all parts of the authority”.
That is what we expect, and frankly, if we do not get the answers—by the sounds of it, we are not going to get them—we will return to this matter. The entire Opposition will return to the matter, and I suspect some Members from the Minister’s own party will return to the matter. I guarantee that I will be seeking to make sure that Ministers too are covered by the Bill, and when it eventually passes next year, I will be looking at what happens.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the appointment process and the circumstances leading to the dismissal of the former United Kingdom Ambassador to the United States, Lord Mandelson.