- Before we come to the urgent question on the Government’s response to the Humble Address, I would like to remind the House that Peter Mandelson is the subject of an ongoing police investigation. However, no charges have been brought. The sub judice resolution, therefore, does not currently apply. In that context, it is up to Ministers how they reply, but the House’s rules do not prevent them from answering fully. None the less, I know that the House would not wish to do anything that risked prejudicing the investigation, so I gently say to Members that it would be helpful to exercise a degree of restraint in referencing the specific matters under investigation.
- 4:44 pm
- (Urgent Question): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the Government’s compliance with the Humble Address of 4 February 2026 relating to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as His Majesty’s ambassador to the United States of America.
- I updated the House last Wednesday on the Government’s response to the Humble Address motion of 4 February, after the first tranche of documents were laid in both Houses in response to that motion. The Government have been clear that they are committed to publishing all documents relevant to the Humble Address, and that further material will be published in due course as officials work through its full scope.The first tranche, as the title of the document made clear, represented,“Part of a Return to an Address of the Honourable the House of Commons dated 4 February 2026”.It responded directly to a number of specific elements contained in that motion, namely papers relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment as His Majesty’s ambassador and the discussions that subsequently led to his dismissal. As the Government have said previously, there are specific documents that we would like to disclose but which the Metropolitan police has asked us not to in order to avoid prejudicing the ongoing criminal investigation into Peter Mandelson. The Government have agreed to that request. We will publish those documents in the future once the Metropolitan police has confirmed that it will no longer prejudice its investigation.As a consequence of that, and as I set out to the House on 11 March, the Government have therefore taken the extraordinary step, as agreed with Mr Speaker, of briefing the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), on terms agreed by the Metropolitan police to ensure that there is as much transparency to the House as possible.As the House understands, the Government must carefully assess the risk of prejudicing UK national security or international relations posed by the release of any official documents. Again, this process is subject to parliamentary oversight. Any such material will be and is in the process of being referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. I thank the Committee for its assistance and can confirm that this process was also followed regarding the first tranche of material published last week. Outside of this arrangement, the important and well-established constitutional principle that national security and international relations judgments are ultimately for the Government has not changed.
- Since last Wednesday, it has become increasingly clear that either the Government did not follow due process in their appointment of Peter Mandelson or that they have not disclosed all the relevant documents. In different terms, either the Prime Minister’s assurances that full due process was followed were misleading, or the Government have not complied with the Humble Address. Either would be a contempt of Parliament.Last Wednesday, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister said:“All the documents that are available in relation to Peter Mandelson’s appointment and dismissal are published…today, subject to those that have been held back by the Metropolitan police.”—[Official Report, 11 March 2026; Vol. 782, c. 371.]But many, many documents are missing. I have detailed 56 documents in a letter that I sent him. To give a few examples, there is no prime ministerial readout on the advice that the Prime Minister received. This is a breach of protocol. A prime ministerial decision, even if made orally, should be formally recorded. Where is that record? It starts to stink of the sofa government that we had under Tony Blair.There are no minutes of any meeting at which this appointment was discussed, by anyone, at any time. Were there really no meetings about this? Most suspiciously of all, we have no material from the Prime Minister, from his chief of staff or from Peter Mandelson: no box returns, no emails, no forms, no WhatsApps—nothing. It is as though their fingerprints have been forensically removed.To narrow this down, on 11 November 2024 the Cabinet Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted to make a political appointment, the civil service would“develop a plan for…the necessary security clearances and do due diligence on any potential Conflicts of Interest”.
- As I informed the House last week, the documents that pertain to tranche 1 are the documents the Government own, and they have been published in line with the Humble Address. The shadow Minister asks about the process followed for the appointment of Peter Mandelson. As the Prime Minister and the Government have said, the process that was followed was the process that was inherited; however, this has shown that that process is not sufficient, which is why it is being strengthened.The shadow Minister made reference to questions about WhatsApps and other messages. I can confirm that those types of documents will be subject to a further tranche being published in due course. He also asked me about security clearance for Peter Mandelson. I refer him to the answer I gave last week in respect of that question, and to further comments from the Foreign Office.
- As an alumnus of Manchester Metropolitan University, I noticed that it has stripped Peter Mandelson of all the honours that it gave to him while he was chancellor of that institution between 2016 and 2024. Can the Chief Secretary confirm that any contacts with Government and the Department for Education during that period are not currently subject to this investigation?
- I can confirm that any documents that are within the scope of the Humble Address and refer to communications between Ministers and others and Peter Mandelson are part of the disclosure process currently being undertaken by the Government.
- I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
- We may debate whether the Prime Minister’s appointment of Peter Mandelson showed a weirdly rushed, catastrophic lack of judgment or just a stunning level of disengaged naivety. Either way, the British public are rightly wondering whether decency in public office is just too much to ask. I reassure them on behalf of the Liberal Democrats that no, it is not too much to ask.As well as confirming that Mandelson’s ongoing relationship with a convicted sexual predator was known, the files also revealed that he was given top-level briefings before his vetting was finished—a vetting process that clearly failed by any measure. Trust in politics is already stretched thin, and I am sure that everyone in this House wants to see it restored. If the worst fears of this sorry saga are found to be true, that trust will take another body blow, boosting only the populists on the left and the right.I therefore ask the Minister, if the Prime Minister really wants to rebuild trust and ensure that the proper procedures are always followed, will he commit to taking up Lib Dem calls to make the ministerial code binding in law, and will he refer himself to the independent ethics adviser to determine whether, in the course of this long, sorry saga, he has breached the code or not?
- Who?
- The Prime Minister.
- I thank the hon. Member for his questions; I just wanted to clarify whether he felt that I should refer myself to the independent adviser.I refer the hon. Member to the letter from the independent adviser, which came out on Friday of last week and concluded that there were no grounds for an investigation into the Prime Minister’s conduct, because the process that the Government inherited for these types of appointments had been followed appropriately. The process itself, as the Prime Minister said again this morning, is clearly not sufficient, which is why it needs to be changed for the future.
- Peter Mandelson’s appointment has done serious damage to public trust, but the deeper issue, as we are finding out, is the culture that made this possible. When a small clique is able to wield this much influence, confidence in public appointments is of course badly undermined. What structural changes are being made to ensure that factionalism and cronyism can never again override the national interest?
- I refer my hon. Friend to the part of my statement in relation to the work of the Ethics and Integrity Commission and the work that the Prime Minister has set it in reviewing the rules around transparency and lobbying, business accounting rules and other such related processes.
- Last week, the Government withheld the questions the Prime Minister put to Peter Mandelson and his responses, apparently at the request of the Metropolitan police. This is perhaps the most important documentation we could see and, as Madam Deputy Speaker confirmed, “Erskine May” confirms that:“In criminal matters, proceedings are active when a charge has been brought”.That is the balance between justice and democracy. Given that Mr Mandelson has not been charged, this matter does not fall under the sub judice rule, and he might not be charged for a year or more, if ever. There appears to be no other statutory bar to the Government releasing information: the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 does not apply; the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply; and the Contempt of Court Act 1981 does not apply because section 5 of that Act excludes public debate of matters of public interest. Given the lack of statutory bars preventing the Government from acting, will the right hon. Gentleman release that documentation?
- I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman and Members across the House would not want to do anything to prejudice a criminal investigation that might finally result in justice for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. As I have said to the House repeatedly, where the Metropolitan police has asked for documents to be held back, we have consented to that. However, recognising the points the right hon. Gentleman makes, we have agreed a process with the Chair of the relevant Select Committee—a Member on the right hon. Gentleman’s side of the House—so that the Chair is able to see those documents and so that any accusations of any cover-up by the Government can be shown to be inaccurate.
- The Chief Secretary has just mentioned that the process was not strong enough, but I have to say that that was a massive understatement. The due diligence checklist published last week screamed reputational risks, yet its red flags were ignored and dismissed, exposing a deeply embedded culture of deception. Mandelson’s appointment has dragged our party into the gutter, and the apparent collusion between key figures in Labour Together and the Prime Minister’s top team signals their clear complicity in this failure of judgment. Will the Government now take responsibility and support a full independent inquiry into Labour Together and those in the UK Prime Minister’s office who enabled this?