Lord Mandelson

Scott Arthur Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Stephen Flynn]

No, I will not.

Today’s debate is important because we will get to the bottom of what Peter Mandelson did—I will come to that—but also because we in this Chamber cannot forgive or forget the judgment of the Prime Minister when he chose to make that political choice. It was a choice that Labour Members have told us repeatedly was a political risk. It was not a political risk. It was a betrayal of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, because Peter Mandelson knew when he continued the relationship that the man was a convicted sex offender.

[Dr Arthur]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Stephen Flynn]

I said I will not. The hon. Member can sit down and listen to my speech today, as his colleagues should have done on many occasions in months gone past.

The Prime Minister has let down not only himself but his office and the public—a public to whom he promised change. He said that he would tread lightly on their lives. Do any of the public believe that today? Do any of them have confidence in his judgment? Are the Labour party seriously saying to the public that they still have confidence in the Prime Minister’s judgment—that we can trust him to make the big decisions, when he cannot even accept that a relationship between Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein should have stopped Peter Mandelson becoming the ambassador to the United States of America?

[Dr Arthur]

I thank the right hon. Member for giving way. I really do think that he is misreading the mood of the House. We are trying to find consensus on what is being debated. He talks about articles in The Guardian and what was in the public domain, but he will know that last year, John Swinney stayed in Peter Mandelson’s house in Washington. He does not always stay with ambassadors, but he chose to then. If John Swinney knew about this—it was in the public domain—why did he stay with Peter Mandelson, and why did he not answer questions on this yesterday, when he was asked them five times?

[Stephen Flynn]

What a desperate and foolish intervention. I would have let the hon. Member intervene earlier, if I had known that was coming. He knows fine well that the First Minister of Scotland does not appoint the ambassador to the United States of America. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom does. I thought that for once we had consensus in this House, and agreed that the Prime Minister lacked judgment by appointing Mandelson. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member disagree and think that the Prime Minister should have appointed him?

[Dr Arthur]

This debate is about trying to find agreement on how the information can be released into the public domain. It is not about grandstanding for social media or making the front page of The National. We are trying to take the country forward.

[Stephen Flynn]

Yet another one—the hon. Member excels himself.

On Monday, the Prime Minister was at the Dispatch Box, and I asked him two questions. I asked him to make an unreserved apology to each and every victim of Epstein for his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson. He chose not to. I then asked him if he agreed, at that moment, that Peter Mandelson should be subject to a police investigation, because I had just reported him to the police. He chose not to agree; he said:

“Only the SNP could go about this in this way”.—[Official Report, 2 February 2026; Vol. 780, c. 34.]

Here we are, two days later, and Peter Mandelson is being investigated. Importantly, the Prime Minister has still not said sorry. That is an abdication of his responsibility, as he has had numerous occasions to apologise. It is another betrayal of those victims.

We must support this motion to ensure that the treachery of Peter Mandelson is not ignored, and to properly understand why the Prime Minister took the decision that he took. Let none of us be in any doubt: these discussions about manuscript amendments and motions, and how we decide on anything, will not matter as much to the public as the Prime Minister’s lack of judgment. That will lead to his departure from No. 10.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

I have been waiting for three hours to speak in this debate, and I wanted to talk about consensus, but it seems that my speech comes just one place too late in the list.

I will start by following on from the point that the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) made about recovering Mandelson’s pay, or at least stopping the pay being awarded to him. My constituents in Edinburgh South West want to go further and recover Mandelson’s pension, too. I thank the Opposition for bringing forward this debate. It is right that we debate these issues; people in my constituency certainly expect us to.

On consensus, I think where we are at is that the SNP, the Greens and the Lib Dems back the original Humble Address. I am not sure whether Your Party backs it —perhaps the right hon. Gentleman was just speaking on his own behalf. The Conservatives seem to accept that their Humble Address was a little reckless, and they want to support the involvement of the ISC. The Government have now shown leadership and brought that in. I think that is where we are at. [Interruption.] Members can feel free to correct me. Do they want to correct me? I am happy to take an intervention.

I expected to hear a little more today about what Mandelson may or may not have been getting up to during the era when Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown were trying to save our economy. I have huge respect for Gordon Brown. He is a man of real integrity. Alistair Darling is a predecessor in my seat, and he was a man of great integrity and someone whom I really respected. I think we can all agree that Mandelson was the complete opposite of those two great men and political leaders of my era. I do not doubt that once the criminal investigation is completed, there will be the public inquiry that some people are talking about.

It is right that we have focused on Mandelson’s links with Epstein today. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet) made absolutely clear why that is so important.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has just said that he thinks it is absolutely right that this House focuses on Peter Mandelson’s links with Jeffrey Epstein, and I welcome him for suddenly coming to that conclusion. Can I therefore ask him why the Prime Minister felt it necessary to appoint Mandelson as the US ambassador when—we know this after this afternoon’s revelation—the Prime Minister knew that Mandelson still had a relationship with Epstein?

[Dr Arthur]

That is why I am here, in this debate. I want these documents released, so that we can understand what decisions were made.

[Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)]

We know the decision that was made. Peter Mandelson was appointed ambassador when it was known that there was a relationship with a convicted paedophile, but it was “worth the risk”. So what is “worth the risk”? What level of relationship with a paedophile is acceptable? Is it coffee in the morning, or dinner at night? There should be no relationship with a convicted paedophile.

[Dr Arthur]

Hopefully the documents will explain what happened. Hopefully.

I know I do not look old enough, but I have been around for a long time. I can remember Mandelson’s first lap, and his second lap, when he went to the Lords. Now there is this third lap. My general perception of him is not of someone I would trust. I would not buy a second-hand car from him. However, that is based on my perception from the media. I have not seen the details of the vetting procedure that he went through. The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), described the selection procedure, and I accept that this Government inherited it, but I thought it sounded like an absolute shambles. The steps that it involved were nothing like what I expected. I expected much more detail, and I hope that the documents that we are talking about will give us at least a bit more.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

The hon. Member says that he would not buy a second-hand car from Mandelson. Would he have made him ambassador to the United States?

[Dr Arthur]

On the basis of my knowledge of him, absolutely not, but I have not seen the vetting documents, insubstantial as they appear to be.

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

Given that—rightly, I think—the hon. Gentleman would not have appointed Peter Mandelson ambassador to the United States of America, does he think that the Prime Minister made the right decision, and will he ever again have confidence that the Prime Minister can make the right decision on any other national security issue?

[Dr Arthur]

At lunchtime, during Prime Minister’s Question Time, we heard at length from the Prime Minister that we will release this information, so that people have a chance to look at it. We can speculate, but today’s debate is about releasing the information into the public domain, so that people can be reassured that the right decision has been made, and if it has not, we can question it.

[Ms Creasy]

My hon. Friend was here when I said that we should not only deal with this situation—I am with those who were not happy about the original amendment —but also think about what we can change fundamentally. This is not the first time we have seen controversial people appointed to positions. Does my hon. Friend, as a relatively new Member, share my interest in learning from other jurisdictions around the world? For example, there could be pre-appointment hearings before Select Committees, which could object to shortlists. Could we not toughen up our role as eyes and ears looking out for what good democracy practice looks like?

[Dr Arthur]

The vetting procedure, as described by the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, seemed so insubstantial. My hon. Friend is right: we have to do much better. I am recruiting a community engagement officer, and it struck me that we exercised more rigour in checking the background of that person, although I accept that I may not have understood the procedure that was described.

It is right that we have focused on Mandelson’s links with Epstein, but if Mandelson had not been mentioned in the data that was released at the weekend, perhaps we would have been speaking about Andrew Windsor and Sarah Ferguson today. They are, perhaps, the winners in that regard.

Earlier, I was guilty of saying that the arguments that the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) presented showed that he had misread the room, but he was right in one respect. He was right to say that Mandelson was a traitor—and I hope that he meant not just a traitor to the United Kingdom, but a traitor to the survivors of Epstein’s sexual abuse—and, in fact, survivors of sexual abuse everywhere.

I think that the residents of Edinburgh South West, and everyone else, expect us to work together on this, and to reach consensus, and hopefully we can. I am still not sure whether the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National party and the Greens are on board, but I think we are moving much closer to one another. [Interruption.] My apologies. It seemed that they wanted to back the original Humble Address, rather than agreeing to the involvement of the ISC in the process; that was my understanding.

[Lisa Smart]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me the opportunity to clarify. In my speech, I said explicitly, from the Lib Dem Front Bench, that I welcomed the Minister’s openness to the ISC being part of this process.

[Dr Arthur]

I am grateful for the correction. Perhaps I was not listening quite as carefully as I should have, so I really do thank the hon. Lady.

I end by thanking our Front Benchers for listening to the arguments of Members from right across the Chamber, for showing a bit of leadership, and for hopefully bringing us together with some consensus.

[Paul Holmes]

The hon. Gentleman’s speech is coming across to me as quite miraculous, and not in a good way. He is claiming that his Front Benchers have shown leadership this afternoon. Let us remind the House exactly what has happened: his party’s leadership and Front Benchers have changed their amendment to the motion, because they knew that Government Members would not have voted for it.

[Dr Arthur]

Can we just reflect for a second? The original Humble Address was reckless. It was going to put information in the public domain that would have damaged our country. It could be argued that the original amendment was an overreaction to that, but we are getting to a good place now; we are reaching consensus.

[Wendy Morton]

All things being equal, would the hon. Gentleman have gone through the Aye Lobby or the No Lobby if a Division was called on the motion?

[Dr Arthur]

I had complete confidence that the Minister would reach consensus in the House today. Seriously though, would Opposition Members have voted for their own motion, which would have put sensitive information into the public domain? I really doubt it. I think better of them than that.

[Wendy Morton]

I think our motion was and is very clear, and we know how evidence and information are brought forward when it comes to the ISC. My question was very clear: would the hon. Gentleman have voted with us on the motion, or against it?

[Dr Arthur]

Mr Speaker, I am trying to sit down. I will do so.