Downing Street has repeatedly refused to say whether Sir Keir Starmer will correct the record after telling Parliament due process was followed in making Lord Mandelson ambassador to the US.
The Prime Minister will battle to save his job in an address MPs later on Monday following extraordinary revelations that the disgraced peer took up the Washington job despite failing security vetting.
No 10 has insisted red flags were not disclosed by the Foreign Office, with Sir Keir blaming officials for not passing on this information to him when he was telling MPs that “full due process” was followed.
Asked whether the Prime Minister accepted he had misled Parliament, his official spokesman said: “The Prime Minister would never knowingly mislead Parliament or the public.
“He’s clear though, that this information should have been provided to him… so he will obviously update the House with the full information.”
Asked if he would correct the record, the spokesman said he would be “updating with information” that he should have had previously.
On whether this meant he was effectively admitting he did inadvertently mislead MPs, the official said the Prime Minister would be “updating Parliament with the full facts of this case”.
The scandal has fuelled calls for Sir Keir to resign, both from opposition parties but also from his critics within the Labour movement, who already fear an electoral bloodbath for the party in May’s contests in English councils and the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
Questions also linger over a letter from former cabinet secretary Lord Simon Case, dated November 11 2024, in which he appears to advise Sir Keir that security clearances should be done before confirming Lord Mandelson as his choice for the role.
The note said that in the case of a political appointment “you wish to take, you should give us the name of the person you would like to appoint and we will develop a plan for them to acquire the necessary security clearances and do due diligence on any potential conflicts of interest or other issues of which you should be aware before confirming your choice”.
It was published in response to a Commons motion compelling the Government to disclose information relating to the appointment after further details emerged about the peer’s association with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
No 10 declined to say whether it had been a mistake to ignore this advice, pointing out that the “normal thing” had been for civil servants to undergo security clearance after appointment and before signing a contract, which the Government has since changed.
Sir Keir effectively fired the Foreign Office’s top official Sir Olly Robbins last week after it emerged Lord Mandelson had been given developed vetting (DV) status despite failing checks carried out by the agency responsible for assessing security clearances.
Whitehall veteran Sir Olly will give his own account to MPs on Tuesday at the Foreign Affairs Committee.
A statement issued by No 10 on Sunday night said that although civil servants rather than ministers make decisions on vetting and clearance, there was nothing in the law to prevent ministers being told.
UKSV’s privacy notice sets out there are “limited circumstances in which relevant vetting information can be shared” if “a security risk has been identified”.
Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander told Sky News he expected Sir Keir to survive to lead Labour into the next general election, “but there are no certainties” in politics.
Sir Keir told the Mirror he would make it “crystal clear” to MPs that he had been kept in the dark and it was “unforgivable” that the Foreign Office failed to tell him after he had offered public assurances that proper process had been followed.
The Prime Minister said: “The fact that I wasn’t told that Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting when he was appointed is astonishing. The fact that I wasn’t told when I said to Parliament that due process had been followed is unforgivable, and that’s why I intend to set out in Parliament on Monday the facts behind that, so there’s full transparency in relation to it.”
He will say the information should have been provided to both him and MPs a long time ago.
Instead, the Prime Minister was only informed about the vetting issue on Tuesday evening after the information was uncovered as part of the process of gathering files related to Lord Mandelson’s appointment to comply with an order by MPs to release all relevant documents.
Allies of the Prime Minister insisted that Monday was the first opportunity he has had to set out the full facts to Parliament, despite appearing in the Commons on Wednesday for his regular question time session.
Lord Mandelson was sacked last year, just nine months into the Washington DC posting, after further details of his association with the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein emerged.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: “This has been a tawdry and shaming affair for you and your party, and for this country.
“Not only have you damaged our relationship with the United States and insulted the victims of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, but you have also undermined our national security by giving the highest diplomatic post to an individual that the security services found to be of ‘high concern’.”
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