Ambassador to the United States

Rachel Gilmour Excerpts

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Commons 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.