Lord Mandelson

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Beyond the deadline to amend the motion—a familiar situation that the right hon. and learned Member and I have found ourselves in before—I want to say something very clearly. I hope the House takes my previous answer on this as having been given in good faith—

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister just said that the deadline has passed to table an amendment. Can you confirm, Mr Speaker, that you just told the House that you would be sympathetic to a manuscript amendment, which would not be subject to that deadline?

[Mr Speaker]

The Chair is able to select a manuscript amendment, for which there is a high bar. There is a lot to clear up and I am sure that things can move forward, but in a nutshell, the answer is yes.

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[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I would like to start by acknowledging the victims of Epstein and the powerful men around him: vulnerable, abused women and girls who were sold and traded. Since the publication of Epstein’s papers, we have learnt so much more. An email from Jeffrey Epstein to Peter Mandelson, dated 28 October 2009, reads as follows:

“new york? brown? cuban-american…have you made any decisions?”

A few minutes later, Peter Mandelson responds:

“why are you awake. these questions are all related – desp for CuAm but can only get to NY at a time when people feel G”

—that may be Gordon Brown—

“won’t have some sort of breakdown…still working on it, therefore”.

There are so many questions to be asked about that. One of the suggested answers might be that this is not just about young women.

[Dr Mullan]

Does the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee regret describing the appointment of Peter Mandelson as “inspired”, and did she know of his ongoing relationship with Epstein prior to his appointment?

[Emily Thornberry]

I will come to that, because it is important, and it is important to put it in context.

Since then, we have seen not just that, but treachery of the worst kind. The question is: how did we get here? How did a man like that become Britain’s ambassador to the United States? We must begin by taking ourselves back to the time when Donald Trump was elected, and consider how challenging and difficult it was to know who was the best choice for ambassador. There was a choice: we could have continued with the ambassador who was already there, Karen Pierce. She had been invited to Mar-a-Lago many times; she had connections with Donald Trump’s circle; she was an older woman; she was a powerhouse; she is great at making friends; she wears mad shoes. She is one of a generation of senior, older women, too many of whom are no longer in the Foreign Office and have been replaced by boys. At the time when Labour was elected, all the other six members of the G7 were represented by women, as was the United Nations. Now there is only one.

We had a choice between deciding to ask Karen Pierce to continue to be the ambassador and going in another direction. The question was: what was the right way to do it? We chose Mandelson because it was seen as an imaginative response, and I welcomed it as an imaginative response. Personally, I would have continued with Karen Pierce, who is a woman I know, trust and admire, but if a different direction was to be taken, it was a choice that was imaginative and one that made some sense in the context of Donald Trump becoming President.

On 3 November, when we discovered more information about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein, we asked Chris Wormald, the Cabinet Secretary, and Oliver Robbins, the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, to come before the Foreign Affairs Committee to give evidence, because we were concerned about how this had happened. Clearly, so much background information about Peter Mandelson was out there but did not seem to have been considered properly before a decision was made, so we asked how it had happened. We were told that the first thing that had happened was due diligence. Due diligence meant fast-stream civil servants having the opportunity to search open sources, so they go to Google and they look, and that threw up reference to Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

I said to Sir Chris Wormald—this is question 313 in the transcript—

“It is really important to be clear about this—I am sorry to keep banging on about it—but was the Prime Minister told that Peter Mandelson had stayed at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in 2009, when Epstein was in prison for soliciting an under-age girl?”

Perhaps this is because of my background as a lawyer, but there seems to me to be a difference here. To stand by a friend who has been accused of something shows one sort of character—it shows a certain strength—but to continue to be friends with them after they have been convicted, and to stay at their house, shows a completely different type of character. That, to me, was a nub point, so I wanted to know whether the Prime Minister had been given that information, which was publicly available—although, I have to say that it had passed me by; I knew of the friendship, but that is different from knowing that the friendship had continued post-conviction. I think it is really important to establish that difference, and that was something we asked about in the Committee hearing. The answer was, “I am not going to tell you the contents of the due diligence report.”

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[Emily Thornberry]

Anyone who either made the decision or said that it was a good thing must regret it, of course, but we must remember that the appointment was made on the 18th and I made those comments two days later. During those two days—in the run-up to Christmas—the Clerks were not the people I referred to first. Work was done thereafter, and the reason for that work was that we wanted Mandelson, once his appointment had been announced, to come before the Committee to be questioned. We felt that it was very important that he should appear before the Committee in an open hearing, where we could ask him questions, such as the ones that I put, and a record could be made.

[Dr Mullan]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Emily Thornberry]

May I just finish?

For instance, I said this:

“if you had come before us, we would have looked on the internet—we would have googled—and we would have found that Channel 4 had done a documentary, ‘The Prince & the Paedophile’, that clearly highlighted Mandelson’s links with Epstein. We would have given consideration to the Financial Times and Guardian reports in June 2023 that referenced the JP Morgan internal investigation. In those reports, what was most damning of all was that Epstein was sentenced in 2008 to 18 months’ imprisonment for soliciting an underage girl, and Peter Mandelson goes to stay in his townhouse in Manhattan in 2009. At that time, Peter Mandelson was the Business Secretary. So we have the Business Secretary staying in the townhouse in Manhattan of someone convicted of paedophilia.”

We would have asked those questions, and whatever answers would have been given, whether they were honest or not, would have been out there in public.

The problem, I think, was that a decision was made in the haste of Donald Trump’s election to go for an “imaginative”, “inspiring” or “alternative” person to go to the United States, and not enough time was spent on it. The decision was therefore made to appoint, subject to—

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[Emily Thornberry]

I think I have made it clear that, for me, there is a difference between being a friend of someone who is accused of something and then putting distance between oneself and that person if they are then convicted. I think a decision should be made at that point. That goes to a matter of conscience and the right way to proceed. That is my view.

[Dr Mullan]

rose—

[Emily Thornberry]

I will not take any more interventions.

I have explained what our Committee was told about due diligence and how that happened. Normally what would then happen is that an interview would be done with a panel, and questions that arose during due diligence would be put to the candidate during that interview. But that did not happen in this case because it was a political appointment. So if anyone had any concerns about Peter Mandelson and his background, or any of the things that people are now concerned about, those would not have been formally put to him during any form of interview process where minutes were taken and we could now look at what those conversations were. That, I think, is a really important piece of information to put before this House so that people understand how this happened.

We have due diligence—fast-streamers looking at the internet—nothing being put to Peter Mandelson, and then the decision being announced. The decision was announced in the middle of December, as we have heard, and then they wanted to do it really quickly, presumably so that he could be at the President’s swearing-in. Also, once the announcement was made, Karen Pierce would have lost power and influence, because it would have been known that she was not continuing in post, so it was important to move as soon as possible.

The next stage was vetting, which is done by the Foreign Office. The question I have for Ministers is this: given that the announcement had been made and that speed was needed, was pressure put on the Foreign Office to get through the vetting quickly? Was there, to coin a phrase, a need to “get on with it”? That is an important question to ask and one that we need an answer to, but we must also be realistic. Once it was known that Peter Mandelson was going to be the ambassador for Britain, it would have taken huge bravery and introduced potential risk to withdraw him from the appointment if anything had come up at the vetting stage.

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[Ms Billington]

I accept that there are wider constitutional implications for what we are talking about right now, and I will turn to some of those later. We also know, however, that there is a long track record across politics, not just across the political spectrum but across decades, where people’s talent—predominantly men’s talent—has been seen as a justification for appointment, regardless of their behaviour or their character, and we do need to consider behaviour and character.

[Dr Mullan]

I think that, by refusing to believe the victims over Jeffrey Epstein, Mandelson is an example of misogyny, and I think the Prime Minister, by deciding to appoint someone who remained friends with Epstein, is an example of passive consent. Does the hon. Member agree?

[Ms Billington]

I will continue to explain in my remarks why I think this is a moment where we need to draw a line under that passive and active consent that we have seen for far too long across all political spectrums and across the decades, where people have turned a blind eye to bad behaviour.

We need to know, and to apply our judgment to, whether somebody is suitable for public life not just because of their talent, but because of their probity. We have many systems in this place, in our Government and in our wider political environment that are supposed to protect the public and our institutions from people who do not have the appropriate probity for public life.

My concern and the concern of many of my constituents, of people across the country and of my colleagues in this House is that, in some ways, individual people’s apparent talent for politics is seen as something that justifies turning a blind eye to their character, their associations and their judgment. I know and understand the importance of acting to ensure that national security is not put at risk. I only wish that we could all be so sure that the former ambassador to the United States had similar concerns.

I am less convinced by the language of “international relations” in the Government’s amendment. I seek clarity from the Minister for the justification for such a broad term, especially when, by the very virtue of the nature of the relationships that should be under scrutiny via the transparency to which the Government say they are committed, the relationship between our country and others may well have been exposed to risk. Will the Minister explain how the Government will distinguish between material that is prejudicial to national security and international relations, and that which is not?

There are deeply concerning reports in the media that the Government amendment is a convenient catch-all to prevent material from being published. For that reason, I seek assurances from the Minister that the Government have a plan to facilitate maximum transparency by handing over relevant sensitive documents and communications to the relevant Select Committees. The Paymaster General said that there should be scrutiny by the ISC of the Cabinet Secretary’s approach. However, that is not the same as the Committee being given the material and having full oversight of it.

I am sympathetic to the expressions of concern by my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop). People voted Labour for change. People are convinced that we are all the same. This is a moment when probity in public life is on the line. The Government can go one of two ways: we can have a culture of certain people being “worth the risk”, or decide to draw a line under that, and agree that there will no longer be situations in which individuals, because of connections or talent, are exempt from the rules that apply to the rest of us.

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[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet). Actually, in writing my speech, I had people like her in mind: the Labour MPs who I know are genuinely passionate about tackling violence against women and girls. They use that passion to criticise us, and what we did or did not do in government—and I respect that—and sometimes to criticise their own Government. It is those MPs that the Prime Minister is trying to throw under the bus today. It is those MPs who I do not think would ever have agreed to the judgment the Prime Minister made, that it was “worth the risk”. This is not some hidden or secret position that the Government took; a Minister said on the record in an interview that the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was “worth the risk”.

What does that mean? What are we talking about here? What was it worth? It was worth disrespecting, denigrating and betraying the victims of Jeffrey Epstein by appointing someone who chose to associate with a convicted paedophile. That is the risk that the Prime Minister chose to take. I do not think it is a risk that the hon. Member for Bolsover would have taken, or the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), or many of those other Members; they would have made a different judgment.

There is a pattern here, and those of us on the Opposition side of the House know what it is like. When Prime Ministers are weak and struggling to maintain their authority, they will go further and further in doing things that their own Members do not want them to do, in order to save their own skin. Members can come to regret supporting that.

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

My hon. Friend talks about it being worth the risk, but this is not just about denigrating those victims; it is also about those Labour Back Benchers that the Prime Minister is marching up the hill. It is worth the risk for him to march them up the hill, then do a U-turn later and finally admit after many months that he knew all along?

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[Dr Mullan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop), and I say this as a Back Bencher who stood up to my Government because I realised what was happening and was not willing to be dragged into those situations. I do not speak from a position of self-righteousness. I have been in that position and I did what I thought was the right thing at the time. I suggest to Labour Members that they think very carefully about this, because we had an admission today. After months of trying to get it out of the Prime Minister, it was drawn out of him by the Leader of the Opposition that he knew that Peter Mandelson had continued his association with a convicted paedophile when he appointed him as ambassador.

[Jim McMahon]

I want to reflect on the hon. Gentleman’s interventions during the course of the debate, which have added to it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) earlier suggested a manuscript amendment relating to the Intelligence and Security Committee. If that was to come forward, would he support it?

[Dr Mullan]

I would like to see the detail of it, but that was a helpful intervention from the former Deputy Prime Minister. I think there is a way forward for us, potentially.

I also want to highlight that it was not just this one issue of whether the Prime Minister knew that Mandelson was in touch with a paedophile. We also know what was publicly reported. Before Mandelson was appointed, Epstein was discussing Government business from jail, if we can believe the reporting. What more could we have known? We are Five Eyes partners with the United States. We share the most secret and confidential information with the United States, so what was preventing the Government from approaching the US Department of Justice prior to the public release of these emails and asking whether there was anything in them that we needed to know before we appointed Peter Mandelson as ambassador? We could have asked those questions, and I would like the Minister to say whether we did ask them and to give us any response we might have had. We are talking about what has been in the public domain, and the Government could have had that information beforehand.

[Pete Wishart]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my opinion that Labour Members just do not seem to get it? There is rising anger right across the country, and it is directed at Jeffrey Epstein and all the things that have been going on, but this is now primarily becoming focused on the Prime Minister. His position is becoming increasingly untenable but they are not seeing what is happening in the commentariat and the press. This is happening in real time.

[Dr Mullan]

I think some Labour Members do get it, which is why we are seeing furious activity with the usual channels at the moment. I think there is a whole movement of those Members who are not going to be willing to support the Government in voting for their own amendment today. I think some of them get it, and the rest of them need to catch up quickly. Those first movers who spoke out and were clear that they were not going to support it will be able to hold their heads up high.

Let us also be clear about Mandelson’s disrespect for this House. We have heard from the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). She has now left the Chamber, but I will refer to her remarks. She gave a pretty poor account of why she wholeheartedly endorsed his appointment. As Chair of that Committee, she is supposed to be independent and to act on behalf of the House. She was happy to explain all the reasons why she felt that the vetting was not complete and the processes were not up to scratch. Why, then, did she not say at the time that this person should not have been appointed? We know that other members of the Committee said the same thing, and they were similarly thrown under the bus by the Chair of the Committee, who endorsed the appointment. I think that is also a disrespect to this House.

[Wendy Morton]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this boils down to judgment, whether it is the Prime Minister’s or that of others on the Government Benches? So much was known about Peter Mandelson even before he was appointed. Surely someone should have got their head out of the sand and said, “Hang on, folks. This isn’t right.”

[Dr Mullan]

As I said, both the Prime Minister and, as we understand it, his chief of staff decided that it was worth the risk. There was lots of distraction today at Prime Minister’s questions from a Prime Minister who did not want to accept that it was his judgment on the line, including on further police investigations, and on other things that Mandelson had done and things we did not know about. What we all knew, and what the Prime Minister knew, is that Peter Mandelson continued a friendship with a convicted paedophile when he made him the ambassador to the United States of America.

[Graham Stuart]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister needs to tell us at the Dispatch Box whether the New Statesman report today is true—that the Prime Minister was directly told that Mandelson stayed in Epstein’s flat while he was in prison, and therefore that the extent of that relationship was absolutely clear to the Prime Minister when he made the decision to make that appointment? I know—because I spoke to some of them at the time—that so many Labour Members were uncomfortable but felt obliged to go along with it.

[Dr Mullan]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and there are many other questions that we want answered by the Government. That is why we want to pass this Humble Address so that we have access to all the information. We have heard from ISC members and other Select Committee Chairs about how we can do that in a way that protects national security, so the idea that we cannot do so without breaching national security is complete nonsense.

I ask Labour Members: what will the public think? How will this look to ordinary members of the public? Labour Members may well put forward technical arguments, and the Government might brief on various reasons why, because of technicalities, they cannot pass this motion and how it is all too difficult, but the public will come away thinking that some Labour MPs—not all of them—are willing to collude and support a Prime Minister who exercised catastrophically poor judgment at the expense of victims of violence against women and girls. It was the stated aim of this Government to tackle that and have it as a key tenet. That will reflect poorly on them, and the public will know exactly what has gone on here: a rescue operation for a flailing Prime Minister who, I think, is on his way out. When Prime Ministers are on their way out, they fight and kick and drag other people along with them. If Labour MPs allow the Prime Minister to do that, they will come to regret it, because once he is gone, he will move on and do new things, and they will still be MPs seeking re-election at the next election, having been tarnished and damaged by the things he did to save his own skin.

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[Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree) (Lab)]

I place on record that my thoughts are with the women and girls who were victims of Epstein and his cronies. I am also deeply concerned for those who suffered incredible loss through the financial crisis in 2008.

This House is at its best when we can find common ground and put aside party politics for the good of our country, and I believe that we are seeing that today. As the deputy Chair of both the Standards Committee and the Privileges Committee, I take that responsibility seriously, and I believe colleagues would say that I always act without fear or favour. Standards in public life and the Nolan principles are not optional to me; they guide my work every day. As politicians, every single one of us in this place must be guided by them every single day.

Our national security is of paramount importance, and I know that nobody in this House would want to undermine that. During the Hillsborough law debate, it was made clear that there are existing legal protections for national security. At moments like this, we are reminded of the importance of and the desperate need for the Hillsborough law and a duty of candour. During this debate, it has been clear that allowing the ISC to have oversight is unquestionably the way forward. At a time when public trust and confidence in politicians and politics are at an all-time low, we must individually and collectively lead the way and assure the public that there is no hiding place for those who seek to betray our country for their individual greed.

Mandelson has a chequered history in my party. Some might say that he has been like a cat with nine lives, being sacked from numerous positions. I cannot think of a more self-serving and self-absorbed politician than Peter Mandelson: a man who leaked market-sensitive information to a convicted paedophile and sex offender while the people of this country queued outside banks and building societies, wondering if their life savings had gone; a man who has benefited so much from being in this nauseous, disgusting web that he cannot even remember his account being credited with $75,000; a man who had no respect for our national security and international relations, because his nose was firmly in the trough.

As a party, we must investigate the culture and those who have enabled Peter Mandelson to thrive for decades, constantly putting his own needs above those of our country and party. Leadership is about integrity, principle and vision. Those are the values of my Labour party, and we must embody them now more than ever.

I am really sad to say that I am ashamed of the amendment the Government tabled. We have to do much, much better. I implore my Government to withdraw their amendment and let the ISC deal with the issues, because that is the right thing to do. Therefore, if it is not withdrawn, I must with a heavy heart vote against my Government’s amendment. I wrote to the Chief Whip earlier today to let him know my intentions.

[Dr Mullan]

Rumours abound that a manuscript amendment will be tabled to bring forward something that Labour Members feel they can vote for. Does the hon. Lady agree that Labour Members should not forget the fact that the Government were willing to try to make them vote for the original amendment?

[Paula Barker]

I think I have made it clear what I think of the Government amendment.

I will end by saying, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) did, that the Prime Minister said consistently during the general election campaign that we must always put country before party. He promised the country that this Labour Government would put country before party. I implore my Government to ensure that that is what they do today.

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[Sir Christopher Chope]

I do not know how much credibility the hon. Gentleman has given to people whom he knows to be serial liars in his professional life. That is the issue. If the Prime Minister was on an interview panel—in a sense, he was; he was interviewing his close friend for a job—he must have known that he was talking to a serial liar.

[Dr Mullan]

We know that there is one thing that Mandelson did not lie about, because the Prime Minister knew it and said so today: that he continued his contact with Jeffrey Epstein after he was convicted as a paedophile. There were no lies in that, and the Prime Minister admitted that he knew it. Defend that!

[Sir Christopher Chope]

My hon. Friend makes a point that is typically made in court. When the defendant is found to be lying, one addresses the jury and says, “He has lied about that, members of the jury. How can you trust him to tell the truth about the charge that he is facing?” In public office, serial liars should not be tolerated.

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[Sir Christopher Chope]

And if the Government cannot give a straight answer to my right hon. Friend’s question, that is another reason why we need a public inquiry.

[Dr Mullan]

My hon. Friend mentioned the revelations that are coming out of the emails. The point I made earlier—it is also very important that the Minister responds to this—is that the Government could have asked the US Department of Justice, “Is there anything in the emails relating to Mandelson that has not been released and could affect our decision to appoint him?” Nothing was stopping them from asking the DOJ that question, and it is vital that we know whether they did or not.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

That is another very good point. I am sure that it has been picked up by Members on the Treasury Bench, and they will respond accordingly. In a sense, we have to thank our mercies that Mandelson has finally been exposed—and not just that exposure outside George Osborne’s house.

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[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

It is a great honour to follow my hon. Friend, although I have to say that was one of his shortest speeches. We come here for a serious matter of the utmost gravity. I have heard a number of good speeches from all parts of the House, including Members on the Government Benches. I commend all those Members who have stood up and said that they are not happy with the Government’s position. That is not an easy thing to do. I am pleased that there is now a manuscript amendment that will force the Government’s hand and ensure that the ISC has a pivotal and critical role.

A number of observations have been made today, some of which I agreed with and some of which I did not. I did agree with a great many of them, but a couple of Members said that the Government had demonstrated leadership in getting to this point. They did not demonstrate leadership. They got here because they were dragged here; they got here because there had been a dump of documents by the Department of Justice, the Leader of the Opposition tabled a motion that forced their hand, and they finally had to confront the fact that Peter Mandelson had a relationship with Epstein for much longer than many of us knew—although certainly the Prime Minister knew, as we found out earlier today. The idea that the Government have demonstrated leadership is for the birds.

I have heard Members on both sides of the House talk about the victims of Epstein, but I say to Labour Members that those are just words if they are not followed up with action. Although the ISC amendment is important, it is not the end of the journey. For months the Conservatives have been pushing for clarity so that we can discover the truth about what was going on with Lord Mandelson’s appointment. This goes to the heart of our politics. What did we find out today when the Leader of the Opposition challenged the Prime Minister? He had run out of road and finally had to come clean about the fact that he knew about this relationship. As for the idea that we need to know the depth of the relationship, let me ask Labour Members this: how deep does a relationship with a paedophile need to be before it becomes eligible for declaration?

[Dr Mullan]

I think the fact that the Prime Minister resisted giving that answer for so long proves that he knows it is incredibly damaging to his Government that he did not want people to know that he had known and appointed Mandelson anyway.

[Saqib Bhatti]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We were sitting together earlier in the debate and reflecting on some of the speeches. I think it was the Health Secretary who talked about the “toxic culture” at No. 10. The amendment was a demonstration of that toxic culture. It was not tabled for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein; it was tabled to protect the Prime Minister.

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[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Ward)]

I beg to move a manuscript amendment, to add to the end of amendment (a):

“which shall instead be referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.”

I start by thanking everyone who has contributed to the debate—the tone was overwhelmingly constructive, serious, and aimed at getting to the truth. I want to thank a few Members in particular, beginning with the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), who got the tone exactly right, asked a number of serious questions that I will come to, and reminded us of the importance of the matter at hand. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop); while he disagrees with me, he did so agreeably, and put his case very well and with passion. I also thank the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith), who reminded us of the origins of the Humble Address—when I was a political adviser on the Brexit team in opposition, they looked a bit more clever than they do today. I thank him for his speech and the spirit in which he made it. In particular, I highlight the incredibly powerful and commanding speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet), who rightly brought the voice of victims to this House. She did so brilliantly, and I thank her for that.

It is clear that Members in all parts of the House share the public’s anger at Mandelson’s treachery, lies and deceit. As the Prime Minister said earlier:

“Mandelson betrayed our country, our Parliament and my party.”

He betrayed our Government.

[Dr Mullan]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Ward]

I will just make a little progress, then I will give way.

Mandelson lied to the Prime Minister. He lied during the vetting process, which I will return to, because a number of Members raised it, and I suspect he is still lying now. That is why, since new information came to light over the weekend, the Prime Minister has acted in a number of ways.

[Chris Ward]

I will give way, just let me complete this point.

On Monday, the Prime Minister instructed the Cabinet Secretary to investigate all papers released by the US Department of Justice. The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister also made a statement to this House. On Tuesday, the Cabinet Secretary decided to refer certain material to the police with the Prime Minister’s support, and subsequently the police have launched a full investigation, with which we will co-operate fully. That investigation must go everywhere the evidence takes it.

[Dr Mullan]

It is pretty underhand of the Minister to make himself the champion of public anger about the person Mandelson was, because I can tell the Minister that the House is angry—both sides of it—not just with Mandelson, but with the Prime Minister for appointing him in the first place.

[Chris Ward]

As the Prime Minister has said many times, if he had known what he knows now, he would not have had Mandelson within a million miles of Government, and that is absolutely right.