Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address

Lord Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his point about the staff. I tried to do it justice but, as chair of the committee, he did it much better than I could. It is important that there is no question that the committee and the House have full confidence in the staff and the work that they do. Yesterday in the House of Commons, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister made it clear that there are ongoing discussions. It is important that the resources that the ISC needs are available. I understand that discussions on that are taking place.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, the Leader of the House referred to things we did not know. The problem for the Prime Minister is that he confirmed in the House of Commons that he did know that Lord Mandelson had an ongoing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein after he had been convicted for child sex trafficking, and he still appointed him as ambassador to the United States of America. That is a bit of a problem.

Can I pick up on something that the Leader of the House said about decision-making? The humble Address said that all information in the terms of the Address would be published, except where it was prejudicial to national security or international relations. I understood that the process of pulling together all those documents was being overseen by the Cabinet Secretary, who I understand has delegated that to the Permanent Secretary in the Cabinet Office, and that it would be that official who made the decisions about what was prejudicial and what therefore went to the ISC. The Leader of the House has just said that that decision is going to be taken by the Government, by which we normally mean Ministers. Can she clarify whether the decision about which documents are prejudicial and will therefore go to the ISC will be taken by the Permanent Secretary in the Cabinet Office, who has been delegated that task by the Cabinet Secretary, or by Ministers?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises two points, the first of which concerns what the Prime Minister did or did not know. I do not think anybody was aware of the extent of the activities of Jeffrey Epstein and the relationship between him and Peter Mandelson until these documents were released. The other point is the information that the Prime Minister and No. 10 have given to the Metropolitan Police. Questions were asked of Lord Mandelson and the answers that were forthcoming to the Prime Minister were not, as we now understand, the case. The Prime Minister feels that he was lied to by Peter Mandelson then. It is the extent of that relationship that is really important.

On the humble Address, I was talking about government in the widest sense. The Cabinet Secretary has delegated this to the Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office, who will be the person sifting the documents to ensure that the documents sent to the ISC are those that the Government have withheld for reasons of international security and international relations and our national security.