'Deliberate': Keir Starmer blames officials for not sharing Mandelson vetting failure

Keir Starmer has said he “should not have appointed Peter Mandelson” as he told MPs he was kept in the dark about the former ambassador’s failure to pass security vetting.

In a statement to the House of Commons, the prime minister said failure to pass on details of Mandelson’s vetting had been a  “deliberate” decision by officials, while rivals suggested he had lost control of government machinery.

He said it was “frankly staggering” that senior civil servants had not informed him that the disgraced ex-peer had failed national security vetting.

Starmer told the House: “I simply do not accept that Foreign Office officials could not have informed me of UKSV’s [UK Security Vetting] recommendations, whilst also maintaining the necessary confidentiality that vetting requires.

“There is no law that stops civil servants sensibly flagging UKSV’s recommendations while protecting detailed, sensitive vetting information to allow ministers to make judgments on appointments or explaining matters to parliament.

“So let me be very clear: the recommendation in the Peter Mandelson case could and should have been shared with me before he took up his post.”

The Mandelson row has dogged the government since his appointment as UK ambassador to the US in 2024.

His ties to late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein were already known, but the closeness of that relationship was subsequently made clearer by the disclosure of files by US authorities.

Other files suggested Mandelson may have passed on market sensitive information during the Gordon Brown government.

The ensuing row has seen Starmer pressed to stand down and his chief-of-staff Morgan McSweeney, who advised on the political appointment, has left government.

Meanwhile, the head of the Foreign Office, civil servant Olly Robbins, was removed from his post last week.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Starmer had “thrown his staff and his officials under the bus”.

Suggesting the House of Commons had been misled, she went on: “It is the duty of the prime minister to ensure he is telling the truth, or does the ministerial code not apply to him?”

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said the prime minister had “let down the millions more people across our country who are so desperate for change”, stating: “He blames his officials. He says he had no idea. He gives every impression of a prime minister in office, but not in power.”

Starmer said it was “usual for security vetting to happen after the appointment, but before starting in post” and that the decision on developed vetting clearance for the Foreign Office, unlike other departments, is made by officials.

Labour’s Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, suggested that “for certain members of the prime minister's team getting Peter Mandelson the job was a priority that overrode everything else and security considerations were very much second order”.

Starmer said the lack of information he had was “unforgivable” and a change in process meant such an appointment “could never happen again”.

He said: “If I have been told that Peter Mandelson or anybody else had not been given clearance on security vetting, I would not have appointed them.

“A deliberate decision was taken to withhold that material from me.

“This was not a lack of asking. This wasn't an oversight. It was a decision – it was a decision taken not to share that information on repeated occasions.”

The speech came with less than three weeks to go until crunch elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and English local authorities.

Ahead of Starmer’s statement, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar addressed the STUC congress in Dundee.

He told delegates: “I know that people have frustrations and disappointments, and I share them.

“There are many good things, but also too many mistakes.

“So, let me be clear, a vote for Scottish Labour in this election is not an endorsement of Keir Starmer.”

Robbins will give evidence to MPs tomorrow. Starmer said he had asked Robbins about the decision not to pass on the vetting outcome.

Starmer said: “What he said to me was essentially that he took the view that this process did not allow him to disclose to me the recommendation of UKSV.”

The SNP’s Stephen Flynn said Starmer had chosen to “proactively ignore the victims of Jeffrey Epstein when he made the political choice to put Peter Mandelson in as the UK’s most senior diplomat” in the US.

He went on: “We have since seen Peter Mandelson be investigated for potential misconduct in public office and we of course now learn through the media that Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting – the prime minister blames all of this on the judgement of others, but I’m interested in his judgement.

“Does he believe himself to be gullible, incompetent or both?”