Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address Motion

Stephen Flynn Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

My hon. Friend is right to raise the bigger issues in question about the process of appointment, disclosure and deceit, and the rules that are in place. Above and beyond all that, unfortunately, is a country and a world in which the voices of women who are subject to male violence are not heard and the abuse of power and privilege is still rampant. I think all of us—in any party and in any part of the House—would want to suggest that that is not how we wish the world to operate. We should all do what we can to change that. That is why the Government are committed to halving violence against women and girls, and it is why we talk about how we tackle structural misogyny, whether at the heart of our political system, in business or elsewhere. I know that my hon. Friend and I share those ambitions and will do all that we can to make them a reality.

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

If I listened to the Chief Secretary correctly, which I think I did, he said, “His victims must be our first priority.” Let us be clear: for the Prime Minister, they were not. On 11 December 2024, he received advice that says,

“Epstein was first convicted of procuring an underage girl in 2008”.

The following sentence says,

“Mandelson…stayed in Epstein’s House…in June 2009.”

I repeat: the victims were not the Prime Minister’s first priority.

That being the case, how can the Chief Secretary stand at that Dispatch Box, with a straight face, and say,

“We must all learn this hard lesson and end a culture that dismisses women’s experiences”,

when it was the Prime Minister who chose to ignore those experiences, ignore those facts and appoint Peter Mandelson in the first place?

[Darren Jones]

The hon. Member will have heard from my—

[Stephen Flynn]

Right honourable.

[Darren Jones]

Forgive me. The right hon. Member will have heard from my statement that in response to the reported allegations that are listed in the Cabinet Office due diligence—at the time they were, of course, allegations—questions were put to Peter Mandelson by No. 10 advisers. His responses to those questions are part of documents that we would have liked to publish today but are not yet able to. Since then, the Prime Minister has made it very clear that Peter Mandelson lied to him. He regrets believing those lies and if he had known the depth and extent of that relationship, which nobody in this House understood until the Bloomberg publication of documents and the US Department of Justice disclosures, he would never have appointed him in the first place.