Starmer says he does not accept he could not have been told Mandelson failed vetting interview
Starmer says he accepts that details of the security vetting process should be kept confidential. But he says he does not see why ministers should not be told the conclusions.
I accept that the sensitive personal information provided by an individual being vetted must be protected from disclosure. If that were not the case, the integrity of the whole process would be compromised.
What I do not accept is that the appointing minister cannot be told of the recommendation by UKSV.
Indeed, given the seriousness of these issues and the significance of the appointment, I simply do not accept that Foreign Office officials could not have informed me of UK’s recommendations, whilst also maintaining the necessary confidentiality that vetting requires.
Starmer says the security vetting was carried out between 23 and 28 January.
On 28 January UKSV [UK Security Vetting] recommended that developed vetting approval should be denied to Mandelson, he says.
But the following day Foreign Office officials approved the vetting, he says.
(Starmer has not mentioned Olly Robbins by name. He keeps talking about Foreign Office officials.)
Starmer sets out the timetable for the appointment of Mandelson.
Mandelson’s appointment was announced before the security vetting had been carried out.
Starmer says he has now changed the rules to stop that happening again; in future, security vetting will have to take place first.
Starmer says it is 'staggering' he was not told about Mandelson failing security vetting interview
Starmer says he found out on Tuesday that the security vetting process had advised against appointing Peter Mandelson.
Ministers had not been told. And even the cabinet secretary, Chris Wormald, was not told.
Starmer says the fact he was not told was “staggering”.
He says he should have been told months ago.
Starmer says he was wrong to appoint Mandelson ambassador to US
Keir Starmer opens his statement by saying he accepts the decision to make Mandelson ambassador to the US was wrong.
I want to be very clear with this house that while this statement will focus on the process surrounding Peter Mandelson’s vetting and appointment, at the heart of this, there is also a judgment I made that was wrong.
I should not have appointed Peter Mandelson.
I take responsibility for that decision and I apologise again to the victims of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who were clearly failed by my decision.
Updated
Speaker warns MPs not to accuse PM of lying during this Commons statement
Lindsay Hoyle says this is a serious topic. He says he expects questions to focus on the topic in hand. He says MPs cannot accuse each other (he means accuse the PM) of lying. MPs can only do that if they are debating a motiong accusing someone of lying, he says, which they are not able to do today.
This is from Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, commenting on one of the proposed questions for Labour MPs in the documented posted on social media by Aubrey Allegretti. (See 3.24pm.)
Labour MPs are now being told to quote an Epstein survivor to help protect the Prime Minister.
The same Prime Minister who knew Mandelson had maintained a friendship with Epstein when he appointed him.
They are shameless.
Updated
Aubrey Allegretti from the Times has got hold of the ‘lines to take’ document sent to Labour MPs by their whips ahead of Keir Starmer’s statement, along with suggested interventions. Allegretti says:
Here are the “lines to take” given to Labour MPs for Keir Starmer’s statement.
Going all guns blazing on blaming the Foreign Office
- For a 63 week wait between Mandelson being granted DV status to the PM being told by about the UKSV recommendation
- “An appalling and inexplicable lack of judgement”
- Quoting an Epstein abuse victim to attack Mandelson
Updated
And this is from Quentin Letts, the Mail’s parliamentary sketchwriter.
Peers’ gallery in Commons already rammed. Starmer not up for another 15 mins.
This from the Sun’s Jack Elsom.
Keir Starmer has just arrived in the Commons, smiling through Portcullis House as he heads to the chamber for his Mandelson statement. Have to say he looked pretty jolly!
Speaker Lindsay Hoyle tells MPs former parliamentary employee arrested under anti-hacking laws
Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons speaker, has told MPs that a former employee in the Houses of Parliament was arrested last week under anti-hacking laws.
In a statement to MPs at the start of business today, Hoyle said:
I want to make a brief statement about a security matter.
I’ve been informed by the police that a former parliamentary employee was arrested last week under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
The police investigation is ongoing. As you know, we do not discuss the details of such issues on the floor of the house.
This is an ongoing criminal investigation. I do not intend to take any further point of order on this matter. I will update members when I’m in a position to share more information.
No 10 repeatedly asked for assurances that Mandelson's vetting carried out properly, Downing Street says
Here are some more lines from the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning covering the Peter Mandelson controversy.
Keir Starmer would not have appointed Mandelson ambassador to the US if he had known he had failed the security vetting interview, the PM’s spokesperson said. The spokesperson told journalists:
It’s absolutely the case that had the prime minister been aware that UK security vetting had recommended against his security clearance, then clearly he would not have appointed Peter Mandelson.
The spokesperson said that, when it was announced that Mandelson was being appointed, that was subject to security clearance. Asked about the revelation that Simon Case, the then cabinet secretary, told Starmer not to announce the appointment of a politician as an ambassador prior to security vetting (civil servants have been vetted anyway, so this would not have been an issue if a diplomat had got the job – see 12.34pm), the spokesperson said:
As is normally the case with external appointments, both to the Foreign Office and to the wider civil service, appointments are made subject to obtaining security clearance.
Obviously, what is now known is that that security vetting process, UKSV [UK Security Vetting] recommended against his security clearance, and the Foreign Office obviously still granted that security clearance.
As part of the review into security vetting the chief secretary to the PM announced, we have stopped that practice whereby these appointments can be made before the security vetting is obtained.
The spokesperson claimed No 10 repeatedly asked for assurances that vetting had been carried out properly. Asked if No 10 had asked about Mandelson’s security vetting, the spokesperson replied:
Repeated questions were asked, whether it was by No 10 or indeed the Cabinet Office, in order to be assured that the proper process was followed in the appointment of Peter Mandelson, and the cabinet secretary at the time led a review of the appointment process, including the vetting process, and throughout that process he was not informed the UK Security Vetting had recommended against the security clearance.
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Swinney claims Starmer not tackling cost of living crisis because he's distracted by Mandelson scandal
John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, has claimed that Keir Starmer is not tackling the cost of living crisis because he is distracted by the Peter Mandelson crisis.
Speaking on a visit to Shetland, Swinney said:
The cost of-living-crisis is hurting people right across the country – and when people in Scotland look to their governments for help, the UK government is asleep at the wheel.
With people paying through the nose at the petrol pumps and on their energy bills, Keir Starmer and the UK Labour government are so weak and so distracted by the Mandelson scandal that they are doing nothing.
Right now, the UK Labour government could put in place a series of practical measures that the SNP has been calling for – scrapping their hike to fuel duty, removing VAT from fuel and introducing a household energy price cap to save people hundreds of pounds.
Instead they have done nothing, and are more concerned with saving Keir Starmer’s career than helping people.
Farage plays down relationship with Trump - as he claims Obama's migration policies model for Reform UK in some ways
Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.
Nigel Farage has been trying to put distance between himself and Donald Trump – a relationship which polls show is one of the greatest impediment to many Reform-curious voters – while talking up Barack Obama’s immigration policies.
At his press conference today, unveiling Reform UK’s latest proposed asylum crackdown (see 3.35pm), Farage said:
All this focus on ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and Trump sort of raises the temperature of everything.
Actually, there’s a lot of ways in which Obama did it, that we think we can learn from.
Farage was referring to the fact that, while some aspects of Obama’s immigration policies were liberal, during his presidency deportations reached a record high.
A poll last month by More in Common showed that Trump is now underwater in terms of his favourability even with Reform voters, who were previously the only set of UK party supporters who saw him positively.
On Monday, Farage also denied that he or Reform UK had anything to do with the pardon which the White House gave last year to Ben Delo, a British billionaire convicted in the US for failing to implement adequate anti-money-laundering controls in his cryptocurrency business. He has given £4m to Reform since then.
Farage said:
Ben Delo has been supporting a variety of conservative causes for a very, very long time … and yes he has become very strongly supportive of us, but there have been no conversations with the Trump administration about that, or frankly about anything for quite a considerable period of time.
Greens join refugee campaigners in condemning Reform UK's 'cruel' plan to deport people already granted asylum
Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.
Plans unveiled by Reform UK that would see a government led by Nigel Farage reviewing all asylum claims going back five years and potentially deporting hundreds of thousands of people have been condemned by the Refugee Council and the Green party.
All claims would be reviewed to find if they entered the UK illegally, overstayed a visa or if their country of origin is now deemed safe, said the party. Leave to remain would be revoked for the individuals involved and their dependents if one or more of those criteria applied. (See 11.09am.)
Farage told a press conference this morning:
I’ve already got provisional agreements in place with France – If [Jordan] Bardella [president of the far-right Rassemblement National party] becomes the next president, and with Afghanistan.
A Reform government would in some cases pay for people to return - but not as much as what the home secretary has proposed, Farage said.
Asked if the policy would also affect the children of those facing deportation said: “We will come to the detail closer to the time but this is about establishing the principle.”
However, the plans were condemned as “unworkable” by the Refugee Council which said the proposals targeted men, women and children who had already been recognised as refugees because they had fled humanitarian disasters and brutal regimes. Imran Hussain, its director of external affairs, said:
Reopening and reassessing hundreds of thousands of asylum decisions would overwhelm the system which is already struggling, tie up the courts for years, and cost taxpayers tens of billions.
And, for the Greens, Rachel Millward, one of the party’s co-deputy leaders, said:
Another superficial, ill-thought-out and cruel announcement by Reform UK, which will fail to tackle the roots of the asylum crisis whilst making sure more suffering is heaped on the most vulnerable.
We do not want to see people risking their lives crossing the channel in small boats. What we need is strong international cooperation to address the reasons that people are having to seek asylum in the first place: war, poverty and the climate crisis, and to provide safe and managed routes that would offer a real alternative to people smugglers.
We must remember our basic humanity. Many of those seeking asylum have endured horrendous trauma. They include mothers and children. We have a duty to offer compassion and sanctuary, not insecurity, fear and intimidation.
Updated
Farage says Richard Tice will pay any tax owing, in response to claim he failed to pay £100,000 in corportation tax
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has said that, if his deputy Richard Tice owes money to HM Revenue and Customs, it will be paid. He was speaking at his press conference in response to a story published by the Sunday Times yesterday saying that some of Tice’s companies failed to almost £100,000 in corporation tax.
In his reply, Farage did not challenge the substance of the story, just as Tice did not seriously contest the detail of it in a statement about it he issued about it yesterday. Farage joked about being “more confused” having got to the end of the story (which covered Tice’s corporate tax affairs in considerable detail) than he was at the start. Farage also claimed that Tice was only being targeted because of role with Reform UK.
Farage went on:
As Richard says, all of this was done by professional accountants, and he has spoken to HMRC about it. If there’s a problem, he will pay …
All I would say to you is the Richard Tice has had a long, distinguished career in business, and if there is an error, if his accountants have made an error, he’ll put it right. But I very much doubt that will be the case.
Updated
No 10 signals Starmer accepts he inadvertently misled parliament in what he said about Mandelson vetting
Downing Street has signalled that Keir Starmer accepts he inadvertently misled MPs by not telling them that Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting interview for ambassador to the US.
Keir Starmer has been accused of misleading MPs because he told them repeatedly that due process was followed in this process. At the lobby briefing this morning, the PM’s spokesperson told journalists that parliament should have been given the information that has come to light about the security vetting leading to a recommendation that Mandelson should not be approved.
But the spokesperson said that Starmer did not knowingly mislead parliament. Under the ministerial code, it is only knowingly misleading parliament that is regarded as a resignation offence; ministers who unintentionally mislead parliament are just expected to correct the record at the earliest opportunity.
Asked whether Starmer misled parliament, the PM’s spokesperson said:
The prime minister would never knowingly mislead parliament or the public. He’s clear, though, that this information should have been provided to parliament. It should have been provided to him, it should have been provided to other government ministers.
But he clearly did not have this information – that is the crucial fact – he clearly did not have this information when he previously spoke to parliament.
Asked if Starmer would be correcting the record, the spokesperson said Starmer would be “updating parliament with the full facts of this case”.
Downing Street released more on this in a briefing published on Friday.
Updated
How Starmer ignored advice for any politician being made US ambassador to go through security vetting first
Keir Starmer was advised that, if he wanted to appoint a politician like Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, the candidate should go through security vetting before the appointment being announced. Simon Case, the then cabinet secretary, said that to Starmer in a memo written in November 2024. As Sky News points out, the document was one of many released in the first batch of papers published in March as a result of the humble address saying documents about Mandelson’s appointment should be published.
UPDATE: Jessica Elgot and Pippa Crerar have more on this story here.
Updated
Olly Robbins to give evidence to MPs tomorrow at 9am about Mandelson, foreign affairs committee says
The Commons foreign affairs committee has confirmed that Olly Robbins will give evidence to it at 9am tomorrow about the way he was sacked over Peter Mandelson’s security vetting.
Updated
Reform UK's Scottish leader Malcolm Offord claims latest Holyrood poll shows he's only alternative to Swinney as next FM
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
A new poll has suggested there will a near tie between pro-independence and pro-UK parties in the Holyrood election on 7 May, with the Scottish National party and Scottish Greens one seat short of a pro-independence majority.
The new poll by More in Common, using the multilevel regression and poststratification system (MRP) which attempts to predict who wins each seat, forecasts the SNP will win comfortably with 56 of Holyrood’s 129 seats but fall short of an overall majority.
That would leave SNP leader John Swinney without the mandate for a second independence referendum he believes a majority would produce. The Scottish Greens claim that mandate would arise if both they and the SNP had a combined majority – a stance Swinney has rejected.
But, according to this new MRP, the Scottish Greens will win eight seats – much less than the 12 or more seats the Greens themselves expect to win, leaving pro-independence parties on 64 seats – one short of an overall majority.
In a bitter twist for anti-independence parties, the poll says Reform UK will be the largest of the unionist groupings, on 22 seats. Labour, who would win 17 seats, and the Liberal Democrats, on 14, have ruled out any deal with Reform.
More in Common were very careful to say that over half Holyrood’s 73 constituency seats are three- or four-way marginals, so subject to high degrees of uncertainty. Even so, it said the Scottish Greens would win two SNP constituency seats in Edinburgh and Glasgow for the first time while the Lib Dems would treble their 2021 result with 14 seats, taking control over the Highlands.
Reform’s Scottish leader Malcolm Offord used these results to issue a vain and redundant challenge to Labour, the Lib Dems and Tories to help install a Reform-led government.
Last week Offord provoked a bitter row with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar after alleging Sarwar had privately approached him late last year to suggest private talks about a deal to lock out the SNP – a claim Sarwar has described as a “desperate lie”. Sarwar has been adamant he would not talk to Reform.
Offord said:
It is abundantly clear now that Anas Sarwar will not be first minister. The only way that would happen is if all unionist parties backed him in a coalition and we at Reform categorically rule out supporting a Labour party that no longer supports workers and doesn’t share our ambition to make Scotland the most prosperous part of the United Kingdom.
So, we ask Mr Sarwar, will you back a Reform government or will you let this country suffer another 5 years of the SNP?
Updated
Farage claims Starmer 'lied' about Mandelson vetting, and says after May election Labour MPs may be in mood to oust him
At his press conference Nigel Farage was asked about reports saying that Keir Starmer knew about the security concerns about Peter Mandelson that led to him failing his security vetting interview. That was a reference to the Telegraph splash, which says:
Senior Whitehall sources told The Telegraph that the UKSV [UK Security Vetting] findings largely restated security risks that had already been drawn to Sir Keir’s attention.
One senior source with knowledge of the process said: “The reality is that Starmer had already been warned about the major risks and he had waved them away.”
In response, Farage said that there was “no way” Starmer would not have known about the concerns.
Farage pointed out that in September last year the Independent published a story by David Maddox saying: “Serious concerns have been raised that newly sacked US ambassador Peter Mandelson did not clear security vetting for the role – but the prime minister pushed through his appointment anyway.” In his story Maddox said:
Sources have told The Independent that MI6 failed to clear the Labour peer largely because of concerns over his business links to China.
However, there were also worries that his past links to the disgraced financier and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein “would compromise him”.
The Independent now accepts that the concerns that it was UKSV that failed Mandelson, not MI6. Asked about the story, Downing Street told Maddox that vetting had been carried out in the normal way.
In his press conference reply, Farage went on:
It’s impossible for the prime minister to say the warning lights weren’t flashing.
And if you were prime minister and there were news reports last September that your ambassadorial choice had failed vetting, you would have thought perhaps he might have had some curiosity to try to find out whether this had really happened or not. I just find the whole thing totally incredible. Incredible. There is no way the prime minister couldn’t have known.
Are you telling me that everyone around him knew and he didn’t know what? It’s possible he’s just a puppet and never consulted on anything, but frankly, it isn’t believable. And I do believe strongly that he misled the House of Commons, that he lied to the country especially. He was so definitive in that Hastings speech that all the necessary channels had been gone that vetting had been assured.
Asked if Reform UK would vote for a no confidence motion in Starmer, Farage said that they would – but that there was no chance of Labour MPs supporting such a motion. He added:
The Labour backbenchers are not yet of a mood to get rid of their prime minister, although after 7 May they just might be.
Former MI6 chief says he finds it hard to accept Lammy's claim he was not told about Mandelson vetting recommendation
David Lammy, the deputy PM and justice secretary who was foreign secretary when Peter Mandelson was made ambassador to the US, has said that he was never told that Mandelson failed the security vetting interview. Mandelson’s was only technically approved because Olly Robbins, the head of Foreign Office, exercised his discretion to ignore the recommendation from the people doing the vetting.
Lammy gave his account of this in an interview with Pippa Crerar.
Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of MI6, has said he finds this hard to believe. He told GB News:
The problem ultimately is caused by the prime minister choosing an ambassador with a known integrity problem. Everybody understood that about Peter Mandelson, if you look at his past record.
I’m not criticising his abilities, but as the talisman for New Labour, he had a very dodgy series of relationships. We won’t go into that. So there should have been, the prime minister should have thought through before announcing the appointment how he was going to manage that aspect of choosing Mandelson.
But let me just move on now to the whole process of the DV [direct vetting]. I cannot believe that a permanent under secretary, when he got the results of the DV, didn’t ring up his minister, who he talks to every day, and say to him, ‘Look, Mr Lammy, minister, we have a problem, and we have to work out now how we’re going to manage that problem’.
Did Olly Robbins really take it on himself to not tell anybody and decide, as the permanent under secretary of the Foreign Office, that the risk was manageable? I mean, whichever way you look at it, it’s a mess. It was a bad choice in the first place. It was an appalling choice in the first place.
Reform UK says it would deport hundreds of thousands of people already granted asylum in UK
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is holding a press conference. He is talking about plans by his party to deport people already granted asylum in the UK. There is a live feed here.
In a news story about the announcement, the Press Association says:
Reform UK has pledged to deport “hundreds of thousands” of small boat migrants who have successfully claimed asylum if the party wins the next general election.
It plans to review all successful asylum claims over the past five years, with anyone who is found to have entered illegally or overstayed their visa and subsequently claimed asylum to “have their status revoked and be deported”, Reform’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf said.
The Times reported that Nigel Farage’s party estimated 400,000 people will be “in scope” of the review and “the majority” will be deported.
In a statement on X, Yusuf said: “Reform will reverse the invasion of Britain.
“Anyone who broke into the country illegally, or came in on a visa and overstayed to claim asylum (which is almost all of them) will have their status revoked and be deported.
“This is an addition to all those currently in Britain illegally.”
The announcement comes after 602 people crossed the Channel on small boats on Saturday, making it this year’s second busiest day for crossings and bringing the total number of arrivals in 2026 to more than 6,000.
Reform has already pledged to identify and deport all illegal migrants in the UK, as well as leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR) which is often used by people to claim asylum.
The party has said it would aim to deport 188,000 illegal migrants a year by operating five removal flights a day.
Updated
Alexander accuses Badenoch of peddling conspiracy theory about Starmer that is 'simply not true'
In his interview on the Today programme this morning Douglas Alexander, the Scottish secretary, accused Kemi Badenoch of peddling a conspiracy theory about Keir Starmer and Peter Mandelson’s security vetting. Ignoring the fact that Badenoch has toned down what she is saying about Starmer from the end of last week (see 10.33am), Alexander said:
The central charge that has been run by the opposition since Kemi Badenoch appeared on this programme on Friday – and I quote her directly, she said “there is deliberate dishonesty, I know he is lying” – is that the prime minister has been deliberately dishonest. That is simply not true.
Indeed, there is a growing body of evidence disproving that charge, not least friends and allies of Olly Robbins himself, who maintained that he didn’t tell the prime minister and claim he couldn’t tell the prime minister the recommendation of the vetting agency about Peter Mandelson.
So, of course, rightly and reasonably, there will be important questions asked from all sides of the House of Commons today and the prime minister will account for the decisions he’s taken where he should at the despatch box.
But the central charge made by the opposition, that somehow he knowingly misled parliament or the public is simply untrue. And to believe that requires a conspiracy not only involving Olly Robbins and his friends, but senior officials like the cabinet secretary, and indeed the permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office and every minister involved in this appointment.
Updated
Robbins has 'integrity stitched into his DNA', says former No 10 foreign policy adviser
Tom Fletcher, the UN under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and a former Downing Street foreign policy adviser, was on the Today programme this morning talking about the humanitarian impact of the Iran war. Asked about Olly Robbins being sacked as head of the Foreign Office for not telling Keir Starmer about the recommendation for Peter Mandelson to be refused security vetting, Fletcher defended his former civil service colleague and said they had been in touch in recent days. He said:
This is a guy who has public service and integrity stitched into his DNA in a way I haven’t seen in any other single individual. And I’ve worked with so many people inside government.
So he has had an utterly rough few days. He’s a pretty strong character. But I think he’s heartbroken.
Asked if he agreed with comments from people like Gus O’Donnell (see 9.59am) and Simon McDonald, another former head of the Foreign Office (in an interview on Saturday) that Robbins had been badly treated, Fletcher indicated that he thought O’Donnell and McDonald were raising serious points.
Badenoch renews calls for Starmer to resign - as she backs away from claim that he definitely lied about Mandelson's vetting
On Friday Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, told the Today programme that she knew Keir Starmer had been lying about Peter Mandelson’s security vetting. She said:
It’s completely preposterous for us to believe that when the prime minister said on the floor of the house [of Commons] the full due process was followed that officials who knew that was not the case would not have told him. He knew.
It is preposterous for us to believe that on 5 February, [after] him giving press conference saying that Mandelson was cleared by the security services, nobody told him that actually that this was not the case.
It’s completely preposterious, the prime minister, the former chief prosecutor, did not ask basic questions, did not ask to look at the security vetting himself.
It’s also completely preposterous that civil servants would have cleared a political appointee who had failed security vetting. Mandelson was not a mandarin he was a Labour party grandee appointed to be our most senior diplomat and ambassador …
It doesn’t matter what story the prime minister is telling, at some point there is deliberate dishonesty – whether it’s the cover-up story or the original story – one of these is deliberate dishonesty, they can’t all be true, and that’s why I know he is lying.
But now Badenoch has revised her charge against the prime minister. She is not saying that she knows he is “lying” (a word that requires someone to not just say something untrue, but to knowingly state a falsehood). In an open letter to the PM, she says he has been “at best recklessly negligent and at worse dishonest”.
Badenoch still wants him to resign, though. She made this clear in interviews this morning, telling LBC: “I do think, certainly, in terms of his authority, he has reached the end of the road. He should resign.”
Updated
Naming Mandelson as ambassador before vetting was mistake, Alexander says
It was a mistake to announce Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the US before he was security vetted for the role, Douglas Alexander, the Scottish secretary, said in interviews this morning. Peter Walker has the story.
Former cabinet secretary Gus O'Donnell says Olly Robbins was following rules about vetting disclosure
Downing Street is claiming that under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 Olly Robbins, permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, could have told Keir Starmer that Peter Mandelson in effect failed his security vetting. (See 9.21am.) In its briefing document today, it says:
Prerogative powers emanate from the crown but are exercisable by ministers and, when (and only when) delegated or otherwise authorised by ministers or as decided by statute, are exercisable by civil servants. In the context of vetting and clearance, this means civil servants run the process and make the decisions on whether clearance should be granted. There are legal obligations in carrying out vetting processes to ensure the appropriate protection and management of sensitive personal information, in accordance with data protection law.
However, no law prevents civil servants – while continuing to protect such sensitive personal information – from sensibly flagging UK Security Vetting recommendations or high level risks and mitigations. This allows Ministers to make informed decisions, including on appointments or when accounting for government business in parliament.
But, in an article published in the Times today, Gus O’Donnell, a former cabinet secretary, has defended Robbins’ decision not to share that information with Starmer on the grounds that he (Robbins) had used his power as the ultimate decision-maker to decide that vetting approval should be granted. O’Donnell says:
For a government often accused of being overly focused on law, legalism and process, they do not seem to have convinced the many sceptics that they have a clear understanding of their own vetting laws and processes. Their explanation of how the express exclusion of ministers, set out clearly in legislation, from the process of national security vetting for officials relates to how ministers are informed has been, to put it charitably, confusing so far.
Moreover, the prime minister might feel that this exclusion of ministers didn’t serve him well in this case. But if so, he should change the system. Instead, he appears to have taken a very rapid decision to dismiss someone for applying what seems on the face of it to be an entirely standard, reasonable and perfectly obvious interpretation of the law and rules as they stand.
Updated
Douglas Alexander says he thinks Starmer should stay as PM until next election, but 'there are no certainties'
Douglas Alexander, the Scottish secretary, was on the government voice on the airwaves this morning. Along with Pat McFadden and Darren Jones, he is one of the ultra ‘safe pair of hands’ ministers trusted to do a media round when the government is in a really tricky position.
His argument was that the appointment of Mandelson as ambassador to the US was a mistake, that Keir Starmer has already admitted this and apologised for it, but that he did not lie because he was not told about Mandelson in effect failing the security vetting. Starmer should have been told, Alexander said. He told Sky News:
I think most people watching this programme would think if there was material information, that the UK vetting agencies had come up with concerns and made a recommendation in relation to what’s a highly intrusive vetting process, that rightly and reasonably, that would be flagged to the ministers concerned.
Asked if he expected Starmer to lead Labour into the next election, Alexander said:
I expect so, yes … I think he will.
There are no certainties but of course I think he will lead and I think he should because, frankly, on the biggest call in this parliament he’s exercised the right judgment, which is to keep us out of someone else’s war.
Alexander also had an unusual way of saying that Starmer does make mistakes.
As a Scottish Presbyterian I don’t believe in papal infallibility, nor do I believe in prime ministerial infallibility.
Updated
Starmer could have been told about Mandelson’s vetting failure, claims No 10 with release of briefing paper
Good morning. There are occasions when a prime minister wakes up knowing that how they perform in the Commons that day will decide whether or not they keep their job – but they are very, very rare. The best example in modern times is Margaret Thatcher on the day of the Westland debate, when she told staff she would still be in post that evening. Boris Johnson had multiple tricky encounters with MPs, but the most difficult – and the most important for his reputation- was the one before the privileges committee about claims that he lied about Partygate, and that came after he had resigned as PM. For James Callaghan, the confidence debate in 1979 was a terminal moment for his premiership, but that vote was not decided by what he said.
There seems to be little chance that Keir Starmer may be finished off by what happens in the Commons today. Since the revelations in the Guardian last week about Peter Mandelson in effect failing security vetting for his appointment as ambassador to the US, despite Starmer repeatedly everyone that he was cleared, Labour MPs have not been calling for his resignation. It seems unlikely that by 6pm tonight that will have changed. But many or most of them were already of the view that he is not the right person to lead them into the next general election, and the events of the past few days have firmed up that view.
Here is the story by the Guardian’s political editor, Pippa Crerar, setting up what is happening today.
In a separate analysis, Pippa writes: “[Labour MPs] know the public has been losing faith in the political system for years. Every twist and turn of the Mandelson scandal accelerates that. So when another opportunity presents itself to change leadership, they may take it.”
Last week Starmer sacked Olly Robbins, the Foreign Office permanent secretary, for not telling him that Mandelson did in effect fail the security vetting. (But technically he “passed”, because as head of the Foreign Office Robbins had the final say, and he was able to override the recommendation from security chief.) Robbins will give evidence to MPs tomorrow, but we know from what his friends have been saying is that he believes that he was not entitled to give the PM details of what is a very secretive process. The more important point in his defence, which allies have been more reluctant to make publicly, is that given that Starmer had already announced that Mandelson had the job, despite everyone in Westminster knowing Mandelson was a scandal magnet, it was Robbins’ job to implement the wishes of the PM, not block a decision, and an assessment of risk, that had already been taken.
Last night, ahead of the PM’s statement to MPs today, Downing Street took the unusual statement of publishing a briefing paper about the rules regarding the disclosure of vetting information. It says:
The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 (CRAG) does not prevent civil servants from informing ministers of UK Security Vetting recommendations. What CRAG says is that civil servants make decisions on vetting and clearance. But no law stops civil servants sensibly flagging UK security vetting recommendations, while rightly protecting detailed sensitive vetting information, to allow ministers to make judgments on appointments or on explaining matters to parliament.
We will be focusing mostly on the Mandelson scandal today, but there is still a war on that has not been fully resolved, and the most important set of elections ahead of the next general election are less than three weeks away. Here is the agenda for the day.
11am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, and Zia Yusuf, his home affairs spokesperson, hold a press conference about the party’s plan to deport thousands of people already granted asylum in the UK.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
After 3.30pm: Keir Starmer makes his statement to MPs about claims that the misled the Commons, and the public, about the vetting process carried out when Peter Mandelson was appointed ambassador to the US.
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