Ambassador to the United States

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Dr Luke Evans]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[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?

--- Later in debate ---

[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?

[Emily Thornberry]

I will give way one final time, but then I will finish.

[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.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.