Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address Motion

(Urgent Question): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister to make a statement on the Government’s response to the Humble Address agreed by this House on 4 February 2026, including on progress made, timescales for compliance and the Government’s approach to any material it proposes to withhold or delay.

Last week, the House made a Humble Address to His Majesty for the Government to disclose material surrounding the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States of America. On Monday, my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister updated the House on further action that the Government are taking.

My right hon. Friend confirmed that the Government will bring forward legislation to ensure that peerages can be removed from disgraced peers, and that Peter Mandelson will be removed from the list of Privy Counsellors. He also explained how we have changed the process for relevant direct ministerial appointments, including politically appointed diplomatic roles. He also set out other areas where we recognise the need to go further, including tightening transparency and lobbying.

In that statement, my right hon. Friend also set out how the Government are responding to the Humble Address motion, and I am pleased to provide a further update to the House today. The Government will comply fully and publish documents as soon as possible. As I said in the House last week, we welcome both the principle and content of that motion, and we will deliver on it as soon as we can. As such, Departments have been instructed to retain any material that may be relevant, and work is under way to identify documents that fall within the scope of the motion. We will do so as soon as possible when the House returns from recess.

In line with the motion passed by this House, where the Government consider that documents may be prejudicial to UK national security or international relations, the Cabinet Office will refer that material to the independent Intelligence and Security Committee. The Prime Minister has written to the ISC, and senior officials have met the Committee to discuss what it requires in order to fulfil that role. As I said in the House last week, full resources will be made available to ensure that process happens, and we will work with the Committee to explain the Cabinet Office’s process for providing material relating to national security or international relations. The Government are very grateful to the ISC for its work, and we commit to full engagement with it to ensure timely and effective release.

Now that you have brought me into it, I will just say that the Intelligence and Security Committee is private and independent, and therefore I would not like to see that it was blocked from information. It would not affect any police investigation, because that information would not go into the public arena. I just want the House to be aware of that.

I also thank the Minister for coming to the House. To me, on something as important as this a written ministerial statement is not good enough; I think it should have been brought to the House. All sides are interested in it, and it is right that this House should be informed, so I really am pleased. I am sorry that the Minister has got the short straw, but I thank him for being here.

I call the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker— I could not have put it better myself.

But I am sure you will have a go. [Laughter.]

Thank you for granting this urgent question, without which hon. Members would not have had a chance to question Ministers before recess. Obviously, the House will rise for recess having received very little in the way of information, so it is very important that we hear from the Minister today so that we can try to have some confidence in the process. Simply put, the purpose of our question today is to try to elicit from the Government a commitment to give the House a timetable, and to confirm—as I think the Minister may have done—that they intend to comply fully with the language in the Humble Address. I say that because press briefings from Government sources this week have suggested that the Government might try to reinterpret the address in some way. For the avoidance of doubt, were that to happen, the Government would have to return to this House for another vote.

Last week, the Prime Minister told us that the process would have integrity because it was being led by the Cabinet Secretary, and that any criticism or denigration of the Cabinet Secretary would not be right. This week, the political forces in No. 10 have been briefing that Sir Chris Wormald is to be replaced—what a turnaround! Will the Minister reassure the House that any change in the Cabinet Secretary will not delay disclosure or publication of the documents that the House has required?

I have several further questions that I will put quickly to the Minister. First, have the Government completed their scoping exercise, and if not, by when do they intend to do so?

Secondly, where the Government propose to release material to the Intelligence and Security Committee rather than directly to the House, will they provide public updates to the House that this has been done?

Thirdly, in respect of documents withheld at the request of the Metropolitan police, will the Government tell us the precise legal mechanism being relied on, and will they commit to publish those documents in full when the police no longer request them to be withheld?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that. Let me try to rattle through those questions. First, and most importantly, we will comply fully. I made that clear in the House. The Government accept the principle and the content of the motion, and we will comply fully with it. A large amount of material—this touches on the scoping question—is potentially in play here, and it goes much broader than other Humble Addresses. That is not a criticism; it is just a factual observation about how long it will take to get through the material. The scoping has begun, and the Cabinet Office is working through that. I will update the House as soon as I can with more. We hope to publish the first tranche when the House comes back from recess. As I say, the scoping is being worked through. The conversations with the Metropolitan police have, as Mr Speaker pointed out, the primacy of this place at heart, but we also, as the House would expect, do not want to prejudice an ongoing police investigation. We are just working our way through that.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Cabinet Secretary. Obviously, it would not be appropriate for a Cabinet Office Minister to talk about the Cabinet Secretary—

Special advisers in your Department are.

Thankfully, I am no longer an adviser. I am a Cabinet Office Minister, and it would not be appropriate for a Cabinet Office Minister to talk about the Cabinet Secretary. Let me reassure the House that the Cabinet Office is working hard and diligently on this. That process is ongoing. Any speculation around the Cabinet Secretary does not affect the process.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Palantir, and I committed to write to him. I have spoken to officials about that, and I promise we will get that to him. There was an urgent question on this matter, which I think the Ministry of Defence responded to, and which provided an update, but I promise I will come back to him on that.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman touched on Lord Doyle. That is outside the scope of this Humble Address and outside the scope of the papers, so the urgent question does not touch on that.

Parliament is rightly focusing its attention on Peter Mandelson, but along with accusations of other heinous crimes, Andrew Mountbatten- Windsor passed extremely sensitive material on to Epstein and his accomplices during his time as trade envoy to Singapore, Vietnam, China and Hong Kong in 2010. Is it not time that, as well as Peter Mandelson, we call on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to answer to both the police and to Parliament?

Everyone in this House has been sickened and dismayed by the revelations from all the Epstein papers that have come through and in relation to what my hon. Friend just said. That is outside the scope of this Humble Address, and it is a matter for the Palace to respond to.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

The events of recent weeks have substantially diminished people’s faith in politics, when it was already at an all- time low. It has confirmed the worst of people’s suspicions about how everything works and punctured the optimism of those who believed in better. At the centre of all this are the victims, and their bravery is twofold: first, by retelling their trauma, and secondly, by taking on the world’s most powerful men and all those who aided and legitimised them.

The Humble Address passed by this place stands as a test of transparency and a test of parliamentary authority. People demand answers, and they deserve them swiftly. They will not stand for endless consultation, reviews and deliberation. Can the Government therefore confirm when they will bring forward legislation so that Peter Mandelson’s peerage can be revoked? What is their deadline for releasing the necessary files? Who in the Government will be held responsible if that deadline is not met?

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that victims should remain at the heart of this. In answer to his question on the legislation to strip Lord Mandelson of his peerage and on broader reform of the House of Lords process for removal, that will come forward as soon as possible. It will be in Government time, as I committed to last week, and we will bring that forward after the recess. It is obviously a Cabinet Office matter, so the Cabinet Office is accountable, but obviously the Prime Minister is accountable for this as well. As I say, we will comply fully with the motion, and we will publish material as soon as we can.

Just over a week or so ago, I expressed my horror at what had passed and was shocked that we could not remove a peerage from someone who had brought the other place into disrepute, so I am very pleased to see how swiftly the Government moved on bringing in legislation to do so. Does the Minister agree that full compliance with regard to providing transparency of records as soon as possible is vital to ensure that we rebuild trust in politics and politicians?

Yes, I absolutely do. As I say, we will comply fully and as quickly as possible. I completely accept my hon. Friend’s point about the removal process for the other place, and it is inexplicable that that is still the case. The sooner we can update that, the better.