Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response

With permission, I would like to update the House on the Government’s response to the Humble Address of 4 February. Before I do, I think it is important for all of us to reflect again on the impact that this debate will have on the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Members across the House will be aware of the truly horrific crimes that he committed against countless women and girls; we hold them in our thoughts when discussing these issues again today.

The Government have today laid the second tranche of documents. These were laid before the House in advance of this statement and are now on gov.uk for the public to see. The documents we are publishing today comprise one of the largest Government publications ever laid before the House. This disclosure process has been wide-ranging, costing the Cabinet Office alone over £1 million. As the House knows, this was an official-led process, with judgments made by senior officials, and I am grateful for the careful work that they have undertaken right up until today’s publication.

While the first tranche dealt with Peter Mandelson’s appointment, withdrawal and severance, this second tranche responds to the parts of the motion that requested communications and documents concerning his appointment and vetting, as well as messages between Peter Mandelson and Ministers, special advisers and civil servants in the months prior to, and throughout the duration of, his appointment.

I recognise that the House will need sufficient time to review today’s tranche in full, given the size of the publication. As we have just heard from the Leader of the House, that is why I have secured Government time on Wednesday for a subsequent general debate: so that there is an opportunity for Members to ask further questions after today’s statement. To inform that debate and for clarity and accountability, I draw the House’s attention to the methodology set out in the publication today, which explains in detail how the Government undertook the disclosure process. I will not repeat that in full here today, but I will make reference to a number of areas that I know the House has expressed an interest in previously.

First, on redactions, in line with the motion, over 300 individual documents were referred under a process agreed between the Government and the Intelligence and Security Committee. I confirm that no material has been redacted on the grounds of prejudice to national security or international relations without the Committee’s approval. For clarity, all redacted material agreed with the ISC is labelled in the bundles today with three asterisks. Outside this arrangement, this process does not change the important and well-established constitutional principle that national security and international relations judgments are ultimately for the Government. I once again express my thanks to the Intelligence and Security Committee for its engagement in this process. Further limited redactions have been made outside the ISC process in respect of information that relates to junior officials’ names; contact details, like telephone numbers and email addresses; the personal or commercially sensitive data of third parties not relevant to the motion; and, where relevant, legal professional privilege.

I would also like to confirm that no redactions have been made to references to Global Counsel, other than to protect the identity of individuals who worked there and are not public figures. Officials have sought to be transparent in the material where the individual is a Global Counsel employee. Also, no redactions have been made to references to Palantir and Anduril outside the scope of the existing ISC redactions process, and no clear references to current or former UK politicians have been redacted on the basis of their being third parties.

I can also confirm to the House that no Government Minister or special adviser has determined any of the redactions themselves. The redaction process has been overseen by Cabinet Office officials and, where relevant, in agreement with the ISC. In addition, the Cabinet Office Humble Address team have taken advice from an independent King’s Counsel—this has included review of the methodological approach followed by officials—and acted on that advice to inform their work. This has helped to ensure that the Government are confident that their approach is compliant with the Humble Address and the Government’s legal obligations.

These additional targeted redactions, made outside the agreed ISC process, have been made in line with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the ministerial code, and the resolutions on ministerial accountability passed by both Houses in 1997. This is important because it goes to the question of whether the Government have complied fully with the Humble Address. That question should be answered in the context of the established rules and precedents that relate to Humble Addresses. If these rules were not relevant, the Humble Address would have required extensive additional detail on the face of the motion dealing with these procedural issues. However, I recognise the level of interest in the House in respect of these redactions not related to national security and international relations, so, on the recommendation of the ISC, I can confirm that the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, has reviewed our approach to third-party redactions this morning. He has confirmed that we have applied the methodology set out in the document and that, in his view, the redactions are sensible, reasonable and proportionate. I thank the ISC for this recommendation and the hon. Member for the additional reassurance he has provided on this point.

As the House is aware, the Metropolitan police has also asked the Government to withhold some material in scope of the motion that it considered could be prejudicial to its ongoing criminal investigation or any subsequent prosecution. This request remains in place and I am very grateful, again, to the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, with whom we have also shared this information in order to provide additional accountability for the Government’s actions. I hope that Members will appreciate the need not to prejudice the investigation and understand that I will not be able to answer questions about certain documents that have been withheld. No responsible Government would wish to undermine a criminal investigation and put at risk the justice that it seeks, and I am sure that the House will share this position. I can, however, confirm that this material does include questions put to Peter Mandelson by the Prime Minister’s then chief of staff, and Peter Mandelson’s responses.

In addition, a small number of documents have been withheld at the request of the police, which fall broadly into the following categories: national security vetting material; conflict of interest process material; and relevant internal correspondence with Peter Mandelson. Such information will, of course, be published at the conclusion of the investigation or at the point at which it would no longer be prejudicial to the police investigation to do so.

The documents published in the first and second tranches contain the entirety of the documents the Government have available for disclosure, except those few documents I have just referred to in relation to the Metropolitan police. Members will no doubt have questions about what might be perceived to be “missing” messages and meeting notes, which I would like to address in turn. On messages that some might expect to be included, I can confirm that we have conducted multiple rounds of discovery from relevant Ministers, special advisers and officials, in line with the motion passed by the House. This has involved requesting searches of email, messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, and other related communications services on both work and personal devices.

However, the House should note that some messages may not have been backed up where devices may have been changed or disappearing messages turned on, for reasonable and permitted reasons, including before the dismissal of Peter Mandelson or the passing of the Humble Address—my messages included. I do recall having some limited exchanges with Peter Mandelson over WhatsApp, including those I have already discussed in the media, but these conversations did not involve transacting Government business and were in line with official guidance on the use of non-corporate communications channels at the time.

I share the view put by the Intelligence and Security Committee to the House that there are lessons for the civil service to learn in respect of better note-keeping, archiving and the use of appropriate levels of secure IT systems in the future. The Government have already committed to a review of the use of non-corporate communications channels, the terms of reference for which we will shortly publish, taking into account the concerns that have been raised in this House and the two tranches of documents that we have published in response to the Humble Address. I will of course keep the House updated as we progress that work.

I now turn to the material relating to Peter Mandelson’s national security vetting process. I can confirm that the vetting process summary and recommendation that was put by UK Security Vetting officials to the Foreign Office has been shared with the Intelligence and Security Committee. It was shared for the purpose of agreeing redactions, as part of the agreed process, so that it can be published when we are in a position to do so. What have not been shared are the highly sensitive personal data inputs collected during the interview process. These could, for example, relate to how much money an individual might have in a particular account or who a person may have had a personal relationship with in the past. If those participating in the vetting process cannot trust that the information they feed into that process is confidential, that will harm the integrity of the whole system. Anything less than full candour would be hugely damaging and profoundly negative for our national security; this would be felt by this and future Governments and, ultimately, by the British people. Sharing this data for any person undergoing developed vetting would therefore undermine the very basis of our national security vetting system.

This is the 10th update to the House on this matter that I have provided. With the exception of the small number of documents that are withheld at the request of the police, which we intend to publish when the police are content for us to do so, the Government now consider that they have duly discharged the duties set out in the Humble Address. I will, however, return to the House for the general debate on Wednesday to provide a further opportunity for colleagues to ask questions. On that basis, I commend this statement to the House.

I call the shadow Minister.

I thank the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. If the story in The Times is to be believed, he may be positioning himself to be the chief successor to the Prime Minister.

I also thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving me advance sight of the material that was published today, which I was fortunate enough to see this morning. However, it is important to put on record that only a very few Members of this House were able to see it this morning. It was available at 9.30 am, yet it was published only at 2 pm, so here we are today with hon. Members not having had a chance to read it and yet being expected to ask the right hon. Gentleman questions. I know the response will be that we are going to have a general debate on Wednesday, but as Government Members will know, if the Minister chooses not to take interventions in a general debate, there is no scrutiny at all. At worst, this is obfuscation; it is an attempt to deny scrutiny in a way that is unnecessary. The documents should have been published at 9.30 this morning in advance of this statement.

It was on the news!

It was on the news. The case of Peter Mandelson’s appointment remains of the utmost national importance simply because it touches on national security and on the Prime Minister’s honesty, integrity and competence. I want to make two basic points about the material before us today: the first is about disclosure, and the second about the process by which Peter Mandelson was appointed.

On disclosure, although we have a huge number of documents, it is clear that very many are missing. Some have been withheld, some have been lost, and it is clear that some have probably been destroyed. Because of the approach the Government are taking, however, it is impossible for hon. Members to know which documents fall into which category. We are told that the Metropolitan police has requested that certain documents be retained, but the Government have refused to tell us which documents are being retained.

I respect the fact that the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister has told us about three broad categories now—this is progress. We did ask for those categories some time ago and were told that we could not have them, but it turns out that we can have them. We know there is no good legal basis for the Government not to disclose to this House which documents are being withheld. The Government should tell us. Indeed, it would be possible for them to disclose those documents to the ISC or to certain Members of the House on Privy Council terms. Again, this is obfuscation. It is an unnecessary attempt to defer or deny scrutiny, and the Humble Address did not allow for the Government to redefine the request in this way. If the Government wish to retain documents because the Met police has asked them to do so, they should come back to the House and change the terms of the Humble Address. They have not done that and, consequently, they risk being in contempt.

Some Ministers have duly handed over their WhatsApp messages; it is clear that some have not. Are we to believe that there was no WhatsApp exchange at all between the Prime Minister and Peter Mandelson? We know that there was, because it has been reported in the press, and yet those messages reported in the press do not appear in the release today. It is clear that some messages have gone missing.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions. There were three broad questions: first, on access to the documents; secondly, on what documents are available or not; and thirdly, on the redactions process.

On access to the documents, as I said in my response to the urgent question before the recess, I have been mindful of the fact that given the significant number of documents published today, we wanted to create as much time as possible for the House to scrutinise them and to be able to ask the Government questions. I agree that had I published these documents 45 minutes before standing up to give a statement for 45 minutes, that would have been insufficient in the circumstances. I hope that the hon. Gentleman welcomes the lengths that I and the Government have gone to, not only to provide the documents in advance to him, the Leader of the Opposition, the Chairs of the relevant Select Committees and other stakeholders, but to publish them much earlier than is normal, and to secure a general debate on Wednesday.

In respect of the documents that are available, as I said in my statement, this tranche plus the first tranche of documents represent the entirety of the documents that the Government have available for disclosure, except for those that have been made available to the Metropolitan police. The hon. Gentleman invited me to list the documents that have been given to the Metropolitan police. As I have said from the Dispatch Box before, I am acting on the advice of the Metropolitan police in not being able to do that, but I am pleased that he welcomes the commitment that we have secured from them to give a little more shape by setting out the categories of the documents that are being held. I remind him and the House that we have also shared the documents directly with the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, so that there is an additional check and balance within Parliament, without being able to share the documents more widely until the Met police tell us that we can do so.

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

I thank the Minister for giving me access to the papers at 9.30 this morning. However, is it right that among the 1,500 pages of documents released, there is no written evidence of any mitigations being put in place either to minimise Peter Mandelson’s conflicts of interest or, more importantly, to reduce the risk to our national security that vetting had flagged, due to Peter Mandelson’s close connections with Russian oligarchs, senior Chinese officials, retired Israeli spymasters and a debt of £1 million to buy shares in a secretive Israeli start-up? Will the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister please tell us whether we will see such documents later because the police have got them, or whether they just do not exist?

Without being able inadvertently to name specific documents, the best I can say to my right hon. Friend on the potential conflicts of interest, as I made clear in my statement, is that that nature of document has been made relevant from the perspective of the Metropolitan police criminal investigation.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, and I thank members of the ISC and the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) for their work on this matter. I acknowledge again the women and girls who found the courage to come forward about the abuse that they endured at the hands of rich and powerful men. As we continue to discuss this matter, we must remember that those women are owed justice.

When Peter Mandelson was appointed, UK Security Vetting advice was overridden. The then permanent secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office suggested that he was subject to constant pressure, and there is a line in today’s files suggesting that senior people expressed interest that the vetting process go smoothly. Given the Minister’s repeated assurances that there was no pressure from Government relating to vetting, what does he think that line refers to?

We now know that Cabinet Ministers were privately praising and flattering Mandelson from before his appointment all the way until after his dismissal. Senior Ministers showed a staggering lack of judgment. Will the Chief Secretary explain why so much business relating to one of the most controversial public appointments in recent years appears to have been conducted over WhatsApp? It was private, informal and outside the official record. Government by WhatsApp, which the Lib Dems have continually called for an end to, must end, because informal messaging outside official channels creates accountability gaps that should trouble us all. Does the Chief Secretary agree that Government by WhatsApp must come to an end?

The hon. Lady invites me in her first question to comment on the intent of conversations between people other than myself. I am sure the House will understand that all I can do at the Dispatch Box is refer to the documents disclosed in the bundle, given that I was not privy to those conversations.

The hon. Lady asks me a number of questions about the use of non-corporate communication channels. The guidance is very clear that non-corporate communication channels can be used, but, where government is being transacted, the decision needs to be recorded on official Government channels. None the less, WhatsApp has been used extensively, which has raised a number of questions for the Government to consider. We will do that as part of our review of the use of non-corporate communication channels, the terms of reference for which I will announce very shortly.

The hon. Lady asks me about the peerages Bill, which was confirmed in the King’s Speech recently and which we will bring forward in due course. We share the ambition to use it as a piece of legislation to modernise the House of Lords in respect of peers who have brought the House into disrepute.

The hon. Lady asks me again about putting the ministerial code on a statutory footing. We have had exchanges a number of times across the Dispatch Box, and I point to the fact that the changes this Government have already made have proven to be effective, given a number of Ministers who have had to resign.

I call the Chair of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.

Any cases that are clearly a real risk to national security should alarm everyone around this House. I think back to some of the questions that I put to then Prime Minister Johnson, as you will recall, Mr Speaker, about his relationship with Alexander Lebedev, for example. We have heard about the case of Oleg Deripaska with George Osborne and Peter Mandelson, as well as other characters, which is deeply concerning.

Let me land on a point about the non-corporate communication channels and IT systems. I am delighted to hear that the Government are reviewing those, but this is a matter of urgency, because it has become the norm for civil servants and those in Government, including in previous Governments, to use the likes of WhatsApp as the normal operating system. When will that review be published?

The first part of my hon. Friend’s question goes to the point I made in my statement about the importance of allowing the developed vetting interviews to be fully confidential. We need to ensure that when people join the Government and undertake a DV interview, they are fully transparent with the Government about any relationships they have with individuals. Turning to the review of non-corporate communications channels, I hope to be able to announce its terms of reference very shortly.

I call the Father of the House.

As far as the House of Commons generally is concerned, this statement is fairly meaningless, because it is impossible to ask questions about hundreds of pages, having had a few minutes to read them. So many general debates are damp squibs, so will the Minister undertake to answer every single question that has been put to him by the time he opens the debate on Wednesday?

indicated assent.