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Mr Speaker
Before we begin the debate, I would like to make a brief statement. I understand that there is huge public interest in this matter, and there has been significant coverage in the media. It is and always has been possible for the House to properly debate these matters within the framework of our existing rules, and there has been no change of convention in that respect. While matters relating to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s recent arrest are currently not sub judice, Members will be aware that there is an ongoing police investigation. I therefore gently say to Members that it would be helpful if they exercised a degree of restraint. I know the House would not wish to do anything that risks prejudicing any possible prosecution. Of course, any comments on the King or the heir apparent would not be in order. I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, that he will be graciously pleased to give directions to require the Government to lay before this House all papers relating to the creation of the role of Special Representative for Trade and Investment and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment to that role, including but not confined to any documents held by UK Trade and Investment, British Trade International (BTI) and its successors, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister’s Office containing or relating to advice from, or provided to, the Group Chief Executive of BTI, Peter Mandelson, the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister regarding the suitability of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor for the appointment, due diligence and vetting conducted in relation to the appointment, and minutes of meetings and electronic communications regarding the due diligence and vetting.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your statement ahead of this debate.
The appalling crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and his associates have rightly stunned the whole world. The scale of Epstein’s operation was shocking—selling human beings for sex, turning hundreds of young women and girls into victims and survivors—and those women are at the front of our mind today as we finally seek transparency, truth and accountability.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor shamed our country and the royal family, but for too long, Members of Parliament were barred from even raising criticisms of him, let alone properly scrutinising his role as trade envoy, because of the outdated tradition that mentions of any member of the royal family in this House must, in the words of the previous Speaker, be
“very rare, very sparing and very respectful”.—[Official Report, 28 February 2011; Vol. 524, c. 35.]
I encountered this at first hand back in 2011, when I was asked to respond to an Adjournment debate on behalf of Lord Green, who was then the Minister for Trade and Investment. The debate was led by the late Paul Flynn, but even he—an ardent and outspoken republican, as I am sure many of us remember, was not allowed to raise any actual concerns about Andrew himself. Paul called it “negative privilege”, and that is what it was. He said his mouth was “bandaged by archaic rules”, and that had very real and damaging consequences. I am pleased to see the Minister in his place, because I know he was also constrained by those rules when he raised similar issues. In that debate, Epstein’s name was not mentioned once, and there was no chance to debate the substance. Standing in for the responsible Minister, I set out the Government’s position, as it had been for a decade, in support of the prince’s role as trade envoy. Looking back and knowing what we all know now, I am horrified by it. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for the survivors and their families to hear Andrew praised like that, as they did so often all around the world, so I apologise to them, and I am determined to change things.
I was struck by the words of Amanda Roberts, Virginia Giuffre’s sister-in-law, after Andrew was arrested last week. She said this could be a stain on the royal family for the rest of our history, or
“it could be a moment where they, and we, decide that this is the time when cultural change happens.”
As a staunch supporter of His Royal Highness the King and the royal family, I believe we must help to bring about that cultural change now.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The leader of the Liberal Democrats is making a powerful speech. I am sure he will agree that decades of deferential and, frankly, sycophantic treatment by Parliament and state authorities are being exposed as having enabled Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to behave as though he were untouchable. I am sure he will also join me in calling on the Government to introduce independent oversight of those members of the royal family who undertake official duties, and in requiring transparency and scrutiny of anything paid for by the state from now on, because apparently, they work for us.
Ed Davey
I am grateful for that intervention. We must build a culture of transparency and accountability; I think that is essential. I hope that we as a House will look at ending the archaic “negative privilege” rules that Paul Flynn spoke about, and remove the bandages from our mouths. Today, we are free of those bandages, when it comes to Andrew. Our motion focuses on finally getting out the truth about his role as a special representative for trade and investment.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
First, I commend the right hon. Member and his party for bringing forward the motion, and for the way that he interviewed on TV this morning. Certainly, he speaks not just for this House, but for this nation. We are all greatly shocked at what has taken place, but does he agree that King Charles, Queen Camilla, Edward, Sophie, William and Kate are members of the royal family who need our support at this time? Does he also agree that now is perhaps the time to tell them that we in this House love them, and that this nation loves them? We understand the pain they are suffering, and we support those members of the royal family who are above reproach on this.
Ed Davey
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I think he probably speaks for the whole House. Indeed, the intention of this debate is to bring this House together. The changes that we think are necessary would protect the royal family and strengthen the monarchy, which in some places has been criticised. That is important, and it is why we need these reforms.
The motion focuses on the start of this—on the appointment of the former Prince Andrew to this role back in 2001. We have seen reporting that says that the King, then the Prince of Wales, expressed his concerns about that appointment. More alarmingly, we have read that Peter Mandelson wrote to the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, as his former Trade Secretary, pushing for Andrew’s appointment—one friend of Epstein lobbying for a job for another friend of Epstein, and a job that might help Epstein enrich himself. We clearly need to get to the bottom of that appointment and the role that Mandelson played in it, and only the papers demanded by this motion will allow us to do that. We need them published as soon as possible, without delay.
There are many questions about Andrew’s conduct in the role, which is now subject to a criminal investigation. As you said, Mr Speaker, we clearly do not want to jeopardise that investigation through anything we say today. We must let the police get on with their work, especially for Epstein’s victims, survivors and their families, who deserve to see justice done at last. However, I would highlight one example of the way that Jeffrey Epstein sought to use Andrew’s role as a trade envoy to enrich himself.
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
My right hon. Friend is talking about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s role as a trade envoy. When I was working overseas for the British Council, Mountbatten-Windsor came to an exhibition I had put on about Dolly the sheep, which was a fine example of British scientific innovation, but he stood up in front of Japanese dignitaries and business people and said, “This is rubbish. This is Frankenstein’s sheep.” Would my right hon. Friend agree with me that that was a very poor example of promoting British trade interests?
Ed Davey
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, which shows not only that we need to focus on the scandals we have heard about, but that even greater questions are raised if the trade envoy was actually speaking against British commercial interests. I hope that not just in this debate, but in other debates, and in Select Committees and elsewhere, we will get to the bottom of that issue.
As I was saying, I would like to highlight one example of how Jeffrey Epstein sought to use Andrew’s role as trade envoy to enrich himself. Channel 4 uncovered emails in the Epstein files in which Epstein was trying to meet the Libyan dictator Gaddafi in the dying months of the Gaddafi regime, to help him find somewhere to “put his money”—something that the Minister raised at the time. In other words, Epstein looked at the deadly crisis in Libya and saw a chance to make some money, and he thought his friend Andrew could help. This is what he said in one of the emails:
“I wondered if Pa should make the intro”.
A few weeks later, Andrew wrote back, “Libya fixed.”
Although the Epstein-Gaddafi meeting does not appear to have happened, this shows clearly what these relationships were all about for Epstein: increasing his own wealth and power. The idea that the role of special trade envoy for our United Kingdom may have been used to help him do that—to help a vile paedophile sex trafficker enrich himself—is truly sickening. Again, I pay tribute to the Minister, who tried to raise this at the time, like his colleague, the late Paul Flynn. It shows again why we need to change the rules of this House that govern Ministers and the debate here.
Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for giving way. [Interruption.] Sorry, the leader of the Liberal Democrats—I stand corrected. [Hon. Members: “More!”] It’s coming.
I asked the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister yesterday in this House about the speed of bringing legislation forward. Victims, Members of this House and Members of the Lords all want this process to happen as swiftly as possible. Does the right hon. Member agree with the Chief Secretary’s comments and that whatever happens with Andrew or anybody else, we must keep pushing to get legislation brought forward swiftly, not in the years to come?
Ed Davey
I am grateful for both the hon. Gentleman’s Freudian slip and his suggestion that we need to speed up action in this area.
Let me begin to conclude. In many ways, this is the first truly global scandal, from the White House and silicon valley to Oslo and Paris. But it is also a deeply British scandal, reaching right to the top of the British establishment. Can there be many people more symbolic of the rot that eats away at the British establishment than the former Duke of York and special trade envoy, and the former Business Secretary, First Secretary of State and ambassador to the United States? Their association with Epstein and their actions on his behalf, while trusted with the privilege of public office, are a stain on our country.
Today, we must begin to clean away that stain with the disinfectant of transparency. Whether it is the President of the United States and his Commerce Secretary, Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor or Epstein himself, their victims and survivors have seen those responsible evade accountability and escape justice for far too long. I hope—I desperately hope—that is ending now, and I hope the House will approve this motion.
The Minister for Trade (Chris Bryant)
Let me be clear from the outset: we support this motion. Frankly, it is the least we owe the victims of the horrific abuse that was perpetrated by Jeffrey Epstein and others—abuse that was enabled, aided and abetted by a very extensive group of arrogant, entitled and often very wealthy individuals in this country and elsewhere. It is not just the people who participated in the abuse; it is the many, many more who turned a blind eye, out of greed, familiarity or deference. To my mind, they too were complicit—just as complicit—and I welcome the reckoning that is coming to them now.
I doubt there is anyone in this House who is not shocked and appalled by the recent allegations. Colleagues and many civil servants have told me their own stories of their interactions with Mr Mountbatten-Windsor, and they all betray the same pattern: a man on a constant self-aggrandising and self-enriching hustle; a rude, arrogant and entitled man who could not distinguish between the public interest, which he said he served, and his own private interest. I remember him coming to visit the Sea Cadets in Tonypandy. They were delighted and excited to meet a member of the royal family, but he insisted on coming by helicopter, unlike his mother, who came twice to the Rhondda and by car. He left early, and he showed next to no interest in the young people. That is, of course, not a crime, nor is arrogance—fortunately, I suppose. [Laughter.]
Of course, we knew much of what is now in the public domain a very long time ago. It is all very well for some of us to say, “If only we had known then what we know now,” but I am afraid that doesn’t wash with me. We did actually have plenty of warning. I called on the then Prime Minister David Cameron to dispense with the services of the then Duke of York in this Chamber on 28 February 2011 because of his close friendship with Saif Gaddafi—Gaddafi was just referred to—and the convicted Libyan gun smuggler Tarek Kaituni. I was rebuked by Speaker Bercow for doing so because
“references to members of the royal family should be very rare, very sparing and very respectful”—[Official Report, 28 February 2011; Vol. 524, c. 35.]
I did not disagree with that ruling, nor would I ever disagree with a ruling from the Chair, as you know, Mr Speaker.
Chris Bryant
I am taking your advice, Mr Speaker: I am just ignoring that.
Over the next few days back in 2011, I repeatedly called for Andrew to be sacked in the public domain—on television, on radio and in newspaper articles—citing his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the mysteriously excessive £15 million paid for his Sunninghill home and many other issues besides. I am afraid the wilful blindness of far too many at that time was absolutely spectacular, and it still angers me. The then Prime Minister, the then Home Secretary and many others in government defended Andrew time and time and time again. I was repeatedly told off, both in the Chamber and outside it.
The broadcaster John Humphrys actually told me on the “Today” programme on 7 March 2011—I think Members will be shocked by this—that Jeffrey Epstein was “not quite a paedophile”, drawing a distinction between sexual abuse of pre-pubescent and other children. Dominic Lawson, writing in The Sunday Times on 11 March, defended Andrew and made the same distinction between Epstein’s involvement with teenage girls and paedophilia, since, as he put it,
“none of the girls was pre-pubescent”,
although he did at least admit that both were “sordid and exploitative”. I gently suggest that that is the least of what we have seen.
Let me be absolutely clear. All of this happened after the photograph of Andrew with his arm around Virginia Giuffre was published in The Mail on Sunday on 27 February 2011—it is after the allegations, not before.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I entirely agree with the Minister on the abhorrence of the comments made in the media back then. Does he agree that we still have a degree of that problem now, because often in the media we talk about “under-age girls” when actually we are talking about children, and we should ensure that when we talk about Epstein’s crimes, we talk about the children who were involved?
Chris Bryant
I agree 100%. I think we should also be referring to statutory rape, because that is what it is. Statutory rape is no better than any other kind of rape. It is rape—end of story.
Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)
The Minister is speaking very powerfully about this issue and has one of the strongest track records in standing up on these types of issues. I have asked that the Government release the files concerning Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, or whatever his new name is, when he was a trade envoy. That request has been refused. Can the Minister review that decision and ensure that, in the new spirit of openness and transparency, those files are open for all to see?
Chris Bryant
I completely respect my hon. Friend. He has made that point several times, not only in the Chamber but also to me privately, and I agree with him: that is the direction of travel we are going in, which is why we agree with the Humble Address presented today. We are not standing in the way, and we will do everything we can to comply with that as fast as we possibly can. I will come on to a couple of caveats a bit later, but I just want to pursue the point about what we knew in the past.
The right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) rightly said that Paul Flynn had a debate on 4 May 2011, to which he responded, standing in for the Minister responsible. However, Paul Flynn initiated another debate, on 17 March in Westminster Hall. It was granted to him by the Backbench Business Committee, which had been set up relatively recently. Because he was finding it very difficult to make any of the allegations that he wanted to make because of the rules of the House, he concluded that
“there really is no point in continuing”.—[Official Report, 17 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 156WH.]
The then Deputy Leader of the House, David Heath—who was another Liberal Democrat member of the Government at the time—made the point, which I think has been made by both Mr Bercow and you, Mr Speaker, that if there were a “substantive motion”, such comments could be made. It would be necessary to find a means of tabling such a motion, like the one that we are discussing today.
Following that, Paul Flynn tried to secure a substantive motion, but managed to secure only a motion for an Adjournment debate, on 4 May. He struggled again, and this is what he said:
“The Speaker would quite rightly abide by the rules of the House and tell me that I was not allowed to make any derogatory statements that might affect the envoy, his personality or his name. It is an illustration of how demeaned we are as politicians and Members of Parliament that I am allowed to make any points about the damage that is done only in an oblique way, by discussing the effects of the holder of the office, his role and the comments that are being made.”—[Official Report, 3 May 2011; Vol. 527, c. 647.]
Of course he was angry: he was furious. He wrote a great book about being an MP, which I commend to all hon. Members.
As the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton knows, he responded to that debate. He said:
“I, for one, believe that the Duke of York does an excellent job as the UK’s special representative for international trade and investment. He promotes UK business interests around the world, and helps to attract inward investment.”
He continued at some length, and concluded:
“He has made a valuable contribution in developing significant opportunities for British business through the role, and continues to do so.”—[Official Report, 3 May 2011; Vol. 527, c. 649-650.]
Let me say gently to the right hon. Gentleman that if he had followed the debates in the public domain at the time he would, I think, have known better than to make those comments.
Ed Davey
The Minister knows that I apologised for making that comment, having taken a brief from someone else. I really wish that I had not uttered those words, because I am thinking about the victims, and I have praised the Minister for the role that he took. I hope he will acknowledge that two months after that debate Andrew left the role, and it was right that he did. I was not privy to those discussions, but the Government did get rid of him.
Chris Bryant
Yes, he left his post in, I believe, July 2011. It could not have come soon enough for many of us, and it is a regret to many that the Government were not able to listen faster and act faster at that time.
What this whole sorry saga shows is that deference can be a toxic presence in the body politic. Of course we always seek to respect others, and we look for the best in others. There is another instance in that Adjournment debate that illustrates the generosity that we often show. The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), whom I told that I was going to raise this, and who is a gentleman to his fingertips and always a very magnanimous fellow, asked:
“Does the Minister agree that one reason why the Duke of York has considerable credibility is his distinguished record as a former member of the Fleet Air Arm who gave valuable service in the Falklands war? That shows a degree of commitment over and above any inherited responsibilities that he might be considered to have.”—[Official Report, 3 May 2011; Vol. 527, c. 650.]
Of course I understand the point that the right hon. Member was making back then, but the fear is that when deference tips over into subservience it can be terribly dangerous, because the victims are not heard, respected or understood in the same way as those with grand titles, and that—as the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton said—has implications for this House. The conduct of business in the House is entirely a matter for you, Mr Speaker, interpreting “Erskine May” and the Standing Orders with the Clerks. I only repeat the words of Paul Flynn in 2011, when he denounced what he called
“censorship on hon. Members discussing an issue of great importance”.—[Official Report, 17 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 156WH.]
I know that you too, Mr Speaker, would want to denounce such censorship.
Let me issue one caveat about the motion. The Government will of course comply with the terms of the Humble Address in full—as I have said, we support the motion—but, as the House will know, there is a live police investigation of the former Duke of York following his arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The House will also be aware that following that arrest on 19 February, Buckingham Palace issued a statement on behalf of the King. His Majesty emphasised that
“the law must take its course”,
and that the Palace would provide its
“full and wholehearted support and co-operation”.
The statement concluded with a commitment that His Majesty and the royal family would continue in their duty and service to the nation, and I am sure the whole House will support that sentiment.
As the police have rightly said, it is absolutely crucial that the integrity of their investigation is protected, and now that these proceedings are under way, it would be wrong for me to say anything that might prejudice them. Nor will the Government be able to put into the public domain anything that is required by the police for them to conduct their inquiries unless and until they are satisfied. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton will agree with that point.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I agree with everything that the Minister is saying, but what is worrying quite a lot of us, in relation not just to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor but to Mandelson, is that because of the ongoing police investigations and because the wheels of justice grind exceedingly slowly, it may be years before we see any of these papers. I would like an assurance from the Government that—notwithstanding what the Minister has just said about the police investigation—they will do their utmost to ensure that there is full transparency, because scandals are made much worse by any sense of a cover-up.
Chris Bryant
I could not agree more. I want to ensure that we move as fast as we possibly can, but I also want to ensure that justice happens, and I do not want to do anything that would undermine the police investigations. I hope that the police will be able to move as swiftly as possible, and we will certainly co-operate with them as swiftly as possible. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that most of the documents that might be envisaged are 25 years old—some are a bit more recent—they may be substantial in number, and many will be in hard copy. I hate to add to the right hon. Member’s fears about the speed with which things may happen, but I think we all want to ensure that we do all this in a proper fashion.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
May I ask for some clarification in respect of the police investigations? The Minister may have noted the intervention made by Gordon Brown on Sunday, when he asked constabularies to consider widening the probe on the basis of files that had been released as part of the data dump. I appreciate that the Minister will not be able to comment on what those police forces are planning to do or not to do, but one of the questions that have arisen is whether all Departments, including the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Transport, would co-operate fully with them in relation to anything that they might need. Can he assure me that every single Department, without fear or favour, will give them whatever they need if they wish to widen the investigation?
Chris Bryant
We will do two things. First, we will seek to comply with the Humble Address as soon as we possibly can, given the caveat that I have already issued about the police investigation. Secondly, we will ensure that every single part of Government co-operates entirely with Thames Valley police and with any other police forces, in respect of whatever they may be investigating. It is not for me, as a Minister, to instruct the police on what they should or should not investigate, or to point them in one direction or another. Former Prime Ministers have a different set of responsibilities. So the hon. Lady is right: I do not want to undermine the investigation, but I also do not want to delay it in any way.
Chris Bryant
I do not want to give way to every single Liberal Democrat Member, but I will, of course, give way to the hon. Lady.
Tessa Munt
I thank the Minister greatly. Does he agree that it is timely, right now, for the Government to press ahead with the Public Office (Accountability) Bill? Amendment 23, which is blocking everything at the moment, seems to present a way through, and to ensure not only that we have transparency and openness but that the Government, and other Members of the House, can be assured that anything that is subject to matters of intelligence or security—and, indeed, matters relating to the police investigation—will not be released. There is an answer in the Government’s hands, and I know not why they are waiting and waiting and waiting to get this sorted out.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Lady might have to repeat what she thinks the answer that thus far evades me might be.
Tessa Munt
I could talk to him about the whistleblowing Bill and the independent office of the whistleblower. People should be able to reveal what they know and should tell the truth. It is shocking that we have to have legislation to tell people to tell the truth, but all this falls under the same remit: people should be free to declare exactly what they know, papers should be released, and there should be an independent High Court judge—that is what happens at the moment and that is what is in amendment 23—who says what may and may not be released.
Mr Speaker
May I suggest that we shorten interventions, rather than make speeches?
Chris Bryant
I return to what I said earlier: we will put everything into the public domain when we can. I do not want to do so at a time that would make it impossible for the police to secure the proper processes that they need to be able to carry out. I am not sure that adding an intervening person helps that process, but I would be happy to listen, Mr Speaker, if the hon. Lady catches your eye later on in the debate. With the leave of the House, I will respond to the debate as well, so I will be happy to answer lots of questions.
Daisy Cooper
Specifically on this point, I am grateful that the Minister is willing to comply with the terms of this motion and that he is trying to manage expectations about the speed with which the Government may act. None the less, he will know that there will still be some members of the public who will view that with some suspicion and alarm, worried that the Government might be trying to long-grass it or put it in the too-hard basket. Will the Minister commit, either now or by the end of the debate, to the Government regularly updating this House so that Opposition parties do not repeatedly have to bring Ministers to the House to answer urgent questions? Will he agree to set out, by the end of the debate, how often the Government would intend to inform the House in regular updates?
Chris Bryant
I am happy to commit to updating the House as often as I possibly can in a way that is informative to the House. The hon. Lady is quite right, however, that I am slightly trying to manage people’s expectations about timeliness, partly because of the quantity of material and partly because there is a live police investigation and I do not want to jeopardise that.
Chris Bryant
I will in a moment.
If there are things that are embarrassing to the Government, who cares? I want to make sure that we end up getting the proper justice that is necessary for the victims, and that means that we have to have a proper police procedure. If there are charges brought, that has to go through a judicial process as well and I do not want to undermine that. I am very happy, both privately and publicly, to update the House when I have anything possible to say.
I am trying to get to the end of my speech. People normally like it when I get to the end of my speech—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I have united the House, Mr Speaker, but I will give way to the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister).
Jim Allister
I understand the concern about not treading upon the police investigation, but surely that investigation is about the conduct of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in the role, whereas this Humble Address is about the appointment and the process of appointment. Is there not a distinction there, which means that this Humble Address of itself should not unduly impede any police investigation or be hindered by it?
Chris Bryant
If the hon. and learned Gentleman does not mind, I will quite happily explain to him outside the Chamber precisely why I disagree with him. Again, if I were to explain more fully in the Chamber, that might not be very helpful to either the police or the criminal process. I am happy to explain to him outside the Chamber and I think he might come back in and agree with me.
Chris Bryant
I think he might. Just sometimes, he agrees with me, but not very often. Small mercies and all.
I want to make it absolutely clear to the House that the former Duke of York’s role as a special trade representative was very different to the one performed by the Government’s current trade envoys. That is often confused in the public discussion. Today, trade envoys are appointed by Ministers with a formalised set of rules of conduct, they are unpaid and they work with my Department on attracting and retaining inward investment, while supporting UK firms to take full advantage of new trade opportunities. They are all Members of either this House or another.
I have recently emphasised to all those trade envoys the importance of maximising the programme’s impact and ensuring that it aligns completely with the goals of our trade and industrial strategies. They are under the same obligations as Ministers in adhering to departmental restrictions, guidelines and confidentiality clauses, which are the same ones outlined in the ministerial code. In sum, trade envoys play an important role in boosting economic growth, delivering our industrial and trade strategies, and helping British businesses to export. I will stress this again: the role held by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was not a trade envoy position as we would understand it today. I am enormously grateful to today’s trade envoys who go beyond the call of duty in promoting UK plc. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s role was a separate one entitled UK special representative for international trade and investment.
There is unanimous agreement across this House that those who may be guilty of misconduct in public office should face the full force of the law. That applies to everyone, regardless of who they are or how they were appointed. This was a point made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister prior to the news of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest. One of the core principles of our constitutional system is the rule of law. That means that everyone is equal under the law and nobody is above the law.
I share the anger and the disgust expressed by many at the alleged behaviour of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. What we are seeing now is a full, fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated by the police and in that investigation they will, of course, have the Government’s unwavering co-operation and support. Sometimes it feels to many members of our country that there is one rule for the rich and famous and another rule for the rest of us. Actually, there is only one rule: the rule of law.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) on securing this debate. I should say at the outset that the Conservatives support the motion.
The truth is that the people who helped Jeffrey Epstein by supplying him with contacts and information were the people who enabled him to become powerful. Those people effectively enabled him to build his net of influence, his net of abuse. That network of power, in turn, enabled him to abuse more and more people, so it is quite right that this House is enabled to scrutinise what went on and how it went on.
I listened to the Minister’s remarks. I appreciate the way that he has approached this debate and the way that the Government will constructively co-operate with the terms of the Humble Address. However, this is the second occasion in only a few weeks when the Government have had to be brought here by Opposition parties under the terms of a Humble Address to disclose information that they quite obviously could have disclosed without the need for such an Address in the first place. I acknowledge the humility with which the Minister has approached the debate, but the Government as a whole could have been much more proactive on this issue right from the start. I also appreciate the humble way in which the Minister came to the House and reminded us that he had been right all along.
Alex Burghart
Very humble.
The leader of the Liberal Democrats referred to this as the first global political scandal. Indeed, it is a global political scandal whose tendrils have reached into the operation of many Governments across the west and the east. The fact that our allies in Poland have launched an intelligence investigation into Epstein’s links with Russia and that in the published Epstein papers it is clear that Jeffrey Epstein was supplying people at the very top end of Putin’s regime with sensitive information about the American leadership show that this is an international scandal and one in which our Government and our security services must play their part in uncovering things. However, I know that the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton is a lover of history, so I must gently take issue with his claim that this is the first global political scandal. I think of the Dreyfus affair, the XYZ affair and the Panama scandals—there have been many—but this is, to take his substantive point, a global political scandal.
I associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that we can only be, as a general point, supportive of the royal family’s role in promoting our country. The people who have witnessed the best of the royal family using their awesome soft power to support what we do best can only be in awe of the vast commitment they make to public service and the life of the country. Indeed, if it is the case, as reported in the press, that very senior members of the royal family expressed concerns about the appointment of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor in 2001, one can feel only enormous sympathy with them over what has subsequently come to light.
The revelations surrounding the relationship between Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Jeffrey Epstein, like those surrounding the relationship between Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein, and the arrest of both men on suspicion of misconduct in public office make it right that questions are asked and information is brought before the House. If one looks back to 2001, it is possible to identify the hand of Epstein in Mr Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment. It is reported that Peter Mandelson first met Epstein in the summer of 2001; Mountbatten-Windsor had, I believe, first met Epstein in 1999. Shortly after Mandelson’s first meeting in October 2001, Mandelson was appointed as trade envoy.
Alex Burghart
The Minister shakes his head, so I will go through the chronology again for him—there is no harm in doing so.
Alex Burghart
Well, Hansard will show it—it may be that the numbers were jumbled up in the Minister’s head.
In the summer of 2001, Mandelson met Epstein for the first time; in October 2001, Mountbatten-Windsor was appointed as trade envoy. It is possible that Mandelson influenced that. As I said, Mountbatten-Windsor had met Epstein for the first time in 1999, so he was already an associate of Epstein. I am glad to have sorted that out—I can go through it again, but I am sure the Minister will be able to read about it tomorrow.
Wendy Chamberlain
By sketching out that timeline, the hon. Gentleman brings to light the reason why we are calling in our Humble Address for information about the actual creation of the appointment, which, as the Minister rightly pointed out, was a unique role created for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Does the hon. Gentleman therefore agree that we are right not only to call out the creation of that role, but to ascertain whether Mandelson had any role in it?
Alex Burghart
Very much so. As I say, it would have been better if the Government had been proactive on this and had not had to be brought to the House by Opposition parties in order to release the information. I am very glad, though, that the Liberal Democrats have learned from the Conservatives’ Humble Address a few weeks ago. It is always good that once the Conservatives have designed a bandwagon, got it up and running and shown that it can move at high speed, the Liberal Democrats scramble up and get on board—better late than never.
If we go through the sequencing very carefully, we can see that it is possible that there was influence from Epstein, who, we must acknowledge, had not been arrested or convicted in 2001, although there were already rumours and reports about him, and who was, in any case, a highly influential foreign businessman. If it was under his influence that Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was appointed as trade envoy, it would be useful to see what the Prime Minister knew when that appointment was made.
Layla Moran
I think the hon. Gentleman is trying to get to a point that deeply concerns me, which is that we need to understand the extent to which the then Prince Andrew was leaning on government for things he wanted. There is an example of this in the recent Epstein files, which contain an exchange between Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein about how Andrew had written to the Ministry of Defence in order to allow their plane to land at an RAF base in Norfolk on 7 December 2000. Andrew’s influence on government predated his appointment. What we want to understand is the extent to which he was already trying to influence government as a prince and what that led to in his role as trade envoy. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is incredibly important to get to the bottom of that?
Alex Burghart
Ah, 2000. Well, I agree with the hon. Lady—that is an interesting point. If one looks at the precise wording of the Liberal Democrats’ Humble Address, however, I am not sure that something like that falls within its context. She may wish to table an amendment to her own party’s motion in order to get at that.
Transparency is essential in all this. That is why the Conservatives very much hope that the Government will give us transparency quickly. I turn to the point made by the Father of the House: there is a danger that the Government will use the police process as a means of not disclosing certain information. I say that not because of what the Minister has said today so much as what the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister said yesterday, when, in the context of the Conservatives’ Humble Address, he said:
“I can confirm that those documents will be made available, subject, I am afraid, to the exclusion of one particular item, in which No. 10 asked Peter Mandelson a number of questions. The Met police have asked that to be held back, subject to their investigations…That item will therefore have to be published at a later date, but the documents that are not subject to the Met police investigation will be published very shortly.”—[Official Report, 23 February 2026; Vol. 781, c. 44.]
As the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) said, I think it would assist the House if the Government could explain why the Met police has asked that that item is held back.
It would also be helpful if the Government could confirm that there is no bar to them handing that document over to the Intelligence and Security Committee—a point on which Mr Speaker has been very clear. On 4 February, Mr Speaker said:
“the Metropolitan police have no jurisdiction over what this House may wish to do. It will be a matter of whether or not the Government provide the information. I want to let Members know that the police cannot dictate to this House.”—[Official Report, 4 February 2026; Vol. 780, c. 375.]
There is a means that was specifically debated during the original Humble Address that enabled Members of this House—that is, the ISC—to be given this information regardless of the police investigation.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is making a very important point. What concerns me deeply in this matter is the fact that my constituents and members of the public are increasingly concerned that what they see is the tendrils—as the hon. Gentleman referred to—reaching into government through this debate. In the handling of these papers and the release of information, we must at all times be aware of the reputational impact not just on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor or Lord Mandelson but on us in this place, as well as on previous and subsequent Governments and Parliaments. Would he agree?
Alex Burghart
Very much so. I know that certain hon. Members across the House will be aware of just how bad it will look if the Government do not provide information as swiftly as possible.
I will give an example of where that is not happening. When we debated the original Humble Address—nearly two weeks ago now—I raised the fact that the Prime Minister had an unrecorded meeting with Palantir in Washington in February last year. He was accompanied on that visit, which did not appear in his register of meetings, by Peter Mandelson. Palantir was a client of the company in which Peter Mandelson held a commanding share. Later that year, Palantir subsequently received by direct award a very substantial contract from Government worth about £240 million.
When I raised this in the House, there was concern on both sides—it was a cross-party issue. I asked the Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office to confirm that the Cabinet Secretary, whoever that turned out to be, would investigate what looks like a clear case of conflict of interest, and he agreed to write to me. I still have not received any reply, despite the fact that I brought it up again at the Dispatch Box at the start of this week and was assured that I would receive a response.
I just do not think this is good enough. It is very important that the Opposition can hold the Government to account in a meaningful way. To the point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), I think it is extremely important that the Government should be seen to be willingly providing information, rather than having to be pushed every step of the way to do the right thing.
I will make one additional point on this score. While we do very much support the Humble Address being debated today, I ask the Government to be clear that nothing in it—nothing at all—will slow down the process of delivering on the original Humble Address. While there is historic and contemporary interest in what happened in 2001, what this Government did in choosing to appoint Peter Mandelson, despite the information they had at their disposal, is of paramount importance. They must come clean, and come clean quickly. As Buckingham Palace said the other day, no one is above the law.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Unaccountable power must not hide, privilege must not be protected, money must be accounted for and elite networks of men operating here and overseas must meet their reckoning for dehumanising, subjugating, exploiting and sexually assaulting women—women who must have justice. The web of abuse surrounding Mr Epstein and his associates must be brought to book, and Mr Mountbatten-Windsor, as a known associate, must also be held to account for his role as a special trade envoy and for his associations. We have all been revulsed by the stories that we have heard, and that is why today’s debate must also be about the victims and survivors.
I first raised my concern because my constituency carries the name of York and the Duke of York’s ambassadorial associations with our city were causing much concern in my community. I therefore brought those concerns to the House on 21 February 2022, just days after the settlement of the lawsuit to Ms Giuffre, known to be in the region of £12 million. My city—a human rights city, no less—was clearly disturbed, and as a result of that I sought a separation between the title and the city. Later that year, after working closely with the Clerks, I brought forward a Bill to remove the title, but that still has not been done. I brought forward another Bill just last year on the removal of title, this time bringing in the option of removing the title from peerages as well, but I have still not had a positive response.
The reasons I am speaking in this debate today are: first, that in looking into these issues, I realised that the Humble Address was narrow in its scope; and secondly, to ask what we should do with the information once it has been corroborated. Clearly the police investigation must take its course, and I am sure it will be deep and thorough because it runs so far, but ultimately, if we are just looking at the appointment, we must also ask about that period of time when Mr Mountbatten-Windsor carried out the role and the implications to wider networks. I do not want this to end up in the court of public opinion, or perhaps with the media digging deeper and deeper into more and more stories. But what does it do to this place? What does it do to change the way the systems work?
Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)
I recognise the work that the hon. Lady has done on titles and holding Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to account. She makes a good point about making sure that we do not have a court of public opinion, but I would like to give my thanks to the many media outlets—it does not matter which one you read or what its political slant—that have done tremendous work, trawling through hundreds of thousands of documents. Does she agree that we owe them a debt of gratitude for bringing to light many of the awful things that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is alleged to have been associated with?
Rachael Maskell
I do agree with the hon. Gentleman, because I know that journalists have been up through the night poring over the Epstein files and digging deep to hold power to account. Our media have a vital role in this, and long may it continue. Their scrutiny is also important for this place and the work that we do here.
We need a process of learning from this, and I believe that there should be a judge-led inquiry to ensure that the multiple strands of this global network of power are brought to account so that we can learn and hold to account in this place with regard to concerns about how these associations are formed and the depth to which they infiltrate places like this, the Government and international networks. As we have learned over the last few weeks, sensitive financial information has been shared, and this can impact on our constituencies, markets and trade. That in turn has an impact on the very people we are here to represent.
No longer can these powerful men swan around the world having these conversations, gaining more power and exploiting whoever crosses their path without being held accountable. We therefore need to understand how to create even deeper transparency across all institutions, including all areas of Government, just as we try to do in this place each and every day. As the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) says, this inquiry must be far-reaching and it must pursue all these issues.
I recognise that many Departments have been missed out in the Humble Address. We need to understand, for instance, how transport has been used, and not just civil transport but military transport. We need to see the missing logs to find out who was on those planes, where they were going and where they had come from. We also need to understand the expenses system that ensued and to find out how signing off for massages became a duty of the taxpayer. Individuals questioned this, as we have heard, but the reality is that people did not feel empowered to blow the whistle and raise those concerns. We need to institute processes where people can raise concerns wherever they see them, but at the moment we do not have the confidence that that was undertaken within the systems. How are we going to institute that?
There are also questions about visas—we know that 90 people came in and out of the country during the period that we are looking at today—and of course there must be rigour in appointment processes. Much has been heard about that over the last few months, and it lies at the heart of this Humble Address. We need to ensure that all these appointments are transparent. I heard what the Minister said today, but we have 32 trade envoys and I have never seen one post advertised. I am not aware of the expertise that those individuals have with regard to trade or to their relations with a particular country. What do they actually add? What value do they actually bring, and how can we assess that from this place? I therefore ask for a proper review of all these appointments to assess what they bring, because surely we should have better accountability.
I also want to mention the intelligence services. I cannot believe that our intelligence services were not aware of some of the movements of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor. How do we bring that to account, to ensure that that information is also in the public domain? Where are the minutes of all those meetings? What do they say? How do we find out? There are so many questions in response to the Humble Address being put today, but we have to think about what we want to do from this point on as well. This must not be about just holding and examining the information and commenting in the tea rooms and the corridors; we must ensure that power is held to account, and that those with privilege know that they are answerable for the responsibilities that they hold.
As the light is shone deeper into the darkest networks of the elite’s exploitations, and as the systems are overhauled and reviewed, may the police do their job well and extensively and may we in this place always focus on the women who were exploited, gaslit, traumatised and left broken as we seek justice and seek to hold that power to account.
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
I want to speak about transparency and accountability in public life and how the system we find ourselves in has been maintained and got us to where we are.
In the early noughties, I was working overseas with the British Council, as I have said. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor visited us as part of his role as a UK trade envoy. Before his arrival, senior staff in both the embassy and the British Council were rolling their eyes—his reputation preceded him. I was told that it was a “containment” exercise, that overseas missions feared putting him out there in case he said something inappropriate, that he was arrogant and that he was not on top of his brief. Rather than looking forward to his visits as an opportunity to promote Britain, it was instead thought that he would do damage.
Moreover, there were rumours about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor—that he refused to stay in the ambassador’s residence, that he would only stay in the Four Seasons or similar top-end hotels, and that he took an ironing board with him when he went overseas. That was a euphemism for a massage table. That was all well known among many officials. It even inspired the BBC TV programme “Ambassadors” in 2013, a couple of years after Andrew was forced to relinquish his role as trade envoy.
It seems that this was known about in the diplomatic circles that I experienced way back at the start of the noughties, and yet Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor enjoyed another 10 years as a trade envoy. Yet when I questioned why this was allowed to happen, I was met with a shrug. “Everyone knows,” they said. As I have said, Andrew came to an exhibition I had put on about Dolly the sheep. At the time, it was the pinnacle of British innovation, and we were rightly proud of it as an example of UK scientific excellence. One of my team was a young Japanese woman who worked for the British Government as a member of British Council staff. Her job—we paid her—was to promote the UK. She showed the then prince around with some Japanese dignitaries. “Dolly the sheep,” he sneered, “It’s rubbish. Frankenstein sheep”. My team member was deflated and did not understand why this representative of the British state diminished what she was rightly proud of.
The talk of Andrew and what he was like came to my own dinner table. My late father-in-law, an air vice-marshal in the RAF, was at a dinner with Mountbatten-Windsor on an overseas trip in the 1990s. He said, in front of many foreign military and diplomatic seniors, “No need for a Royal Air Force”. My father-in-law said nothing, and that was the problem. People could not because of his privileged position. My father-in-law raised it with the Chief of the Air Staff and was told it would be raised with the Palace. What happened next? Who knows? Did diplomats raise the concern to their seniors and to the very top from early on? Did the Palace do its own internal investigation? If they did, was it shared with the Department for Business and Trade? Where did these concerns all go? In doing so, did they—the system—unwittingly or wittingly support protection or cover-up, because of “the way things were done” or because of deference? That is the point of this debate. Some officials knew, or the system seemed to know, but the system seemingly failed to do anything about it for 10 years because of privilege and deference.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
On this point about which Departments had which papers, I note that the Humble Address uses the words
“including but not confined to”.
Surely papers in the royal household that relate to this matter should also come under the scope of the Humble Address. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Monica Harding
I agree. There is a systematic and joined-up failure that we need to unravel, and I will come back to that in my speech.
When there was scrutiny after 2011, there was still a failure of oversight. What does that say about our society, how we protect privilege and what we are prepared to accept on behalf of the British state and our representatives? Can rules be broken by some people and not others? Do propriety and ethics belong to all those who represent the British state?
We have a parliamentary monarchy. That means that if the Palace does not open itself to scrutiny and carry out its own inquiry, Parliament must. I have some questions. On what basis was Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor given the role of trade envoy? Who put him forward and was there resistance to it? While he was trade envoy, what concerns were raised and with whom, from what date and how were they actioned? Money was put up by the royal family to protect him. Does Parliament have a right to understand why that money was put up and that public funds were not used in the civil settlement with Virginia Giuffre? Can Parliament find out that not one penny of public money was used in that settlement?
I know you will share with me, Madam Deputy Speaker, the concern about levels of public confidence in all our institutions and the people who represent them. Parliament must assert itself in this regard, and I, along with my colleagues, call for the full publication of all documents related to Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment as a special envoy and for an end to negative privilege, so that MPs in this place can speak freely about their concerns and disclose information in the House of Commons, even if that individual is a member of the royal family.
I will end, as I must, with thoughts for the victims of the Epstein scandal, which has triggered so much of this debate, and all those who are victims of power, privilege and deference. They are foremost in our minds as this furore continues. It is thanks to their bravery that we know the extent of Epstein’s crimes and the wider implications for our own establishment.
Wendy Chamberlain
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I am conscious that she was close to concluding, but her words about the victims are powerful. I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group for the survivors of Fayed and Harrods. We have just started our work, but Members may have heard a powerful interview on the “World at One” a couple of weeks ago, which talked about the lack of acknowledgement of what had taken place and the fact that the police did not properly understand trafficking. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), described this as a global enterprise. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to do much more work around this and that it is not just about the victims of Epstein, but other trafficking victims, too?
Monica Harding
My hon. Friend is quite right. This is about systemic failure, and we are at the very beginning of this, not the end. For the victims of Epstein, we must do everything we can to ensure that this investigation and inquiry continue. On behalf of those victims and those who are suffering right now from the same thing, we must ensure that the wider system cleans itself up, and we must facilitate that.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)
The release of the Epstein files has shone a light where so many people did not want a light to be shone. Even with millions of documents still to be released, it is abundantly clear that for decades, the rich, the politically powerful and the well-connected have colluded to cover up their utterly appalling behaviours. That light which is now being shone does not just illuminate those who are personally responsible for their behaviour; it reveals those who knew what was happening, who enabled it and who chose to turn a blind eye.
The people of this country are rightly furious. That is why I made the point yesterday, and will make it again today, on the Humble Address on the release of the Peter Mandelson files that with trust in the Government at an all-time low, they only have one chance to come clean about everything they know and they hold pertaining, in this case, to the creation of the role of special representative for trade and investment and the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to that post.
Of course, unlike the Mandelson files which this House demanded be released, the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor did not happen on the current Government’s watch. But Mr Mandelson leaves a long trail, and there may well be information which relates directly to him and which will cause serious embarrassment to many senior Labour party figures who were in power at the time. Let us not forget that the author Andrew Lownie explains in great detail in his book, “Entitled” about how it was former Trade Secretary Peter Mandelson who assisted Mr Mountbatten-Windsor in landing the role of UK special representative, seemingly against the advice of Mr Mountbatten’s brother, the then Prince Charles.
Let me repeat my warning from yesterday that these files must be released and must be released in full, because any attempt to sanitise what is in them and to save face for any Government Ministers, past or present, could have serious long-term consequences for our democracy. That is also the very least that the victims and survivors deserve.
We know that there are serious questions about the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor as trade envoy back in 2001 that need answers. They include: whose idea was it? Who vetted him? Was he vetted at all? What role did Peter Mandelson play in making that appointment happen? What in his previous life made him uniquely suitable for the position of UK trade envoy? What warnings were given before and during his stint as trade envoy about his character and behaviour? Who was he responsible to while serving as trade envoy? Who scrutinised his behaviour and spending? What warnings were given during his time as trade envoy and how were those warnings handled?
In a normal, functioning democracy, we would not have had to wait until Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had been stripped of his titles and evicted from his royal house, and was facing removal from the line of succession, before being able to discuss this issue. There have been serious concerns about Mr Mountbatten-Windsor for decades, many of them relating to his time as trade envoy. There are reports of him requesting that the public purse cover the cost of his massage services. When one understandably angry and unhappy civil servant complained, he was promptly overruled by his bosses. That now retired civil servant commented recently:
“I can’t say it would have stopped him, but we should have flagged that something was wrong.”
Of course something was wrong, but what difference would it have made to us in this House? As Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was a member of the royal family at that time, we were not allowed to question or examine what he was doing as a special trade envoy.
It was not just civil servants who found getting information on Mr Mountbatten-Windsor all but impossible. The author Andrew Lownie has reported that he has had multiple freedom of information requests rejected, including on the grounds that it would be too time-consuming for Departments to go through the volume of information. One rejection actually said that looking at just one year of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor’s time as trade envoy would mean going through 1,927 digital files, each containing multiple pieces of information. Yet until Mr Mountbatten-Windsor’s status changed, we in this House were not allowed to discuss that.
Freddie van Mierlo
The hon. Gentleman is speaking to the fact that the title of prince has protected Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from greater scrutiny and inspection of his activities. What should we do to ensure that other titles, whether that is Prime Minister, Secretary of State or royal titles, do not protect powerful individuals?
Brendan O’Hara
The answer is quite simple: nobody can be above the law. Everybody has to be equal in the eyes of the law. As the great Paul Flynn said, we have to remove the bandages from our mouths in this place, and I will return to that point. Fundamentally, regardless of rank or privilege, nobody should be above the law.
Many people will be embarrassed by what has happened, not least, as we have heard, the now leader of the Liberal Democrats, who, as Under-Secretary for Business, Innovation and Skills, and, I presume, with his fingers firmly crossed behind his back, was forced to stoutly defend the then Prince Andrew. He said:
“I…believe that the Duke of York does an excellent job”.—[Official Report, 3 May 2011; Vol. 527, c. 649.]
He called him a “long-standing success” and said he had been great for British business, but what else could he have said as a Government Minister? We are not allowed to speak the truth about certain individuals in this place. Within three months of the right hon. Member making those comments, Mr Mountbatten-Windsor had resigned in disgrace because of his continued relationship with the convicted paedophile and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
It was not just Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s relationship with Epstein that caused concern. In February 2011, the Minister attempted to raise a question about the special representative role and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s links to a notorious convicted Libyan arms smuggler, only to be told by the then Speaker that
“references to members of the royal family should be very rare, very sparing and very respectful”.—[Official Report, 28 February 2011; Vol. 524, c. 35.]
These archaic rules make a mockery of our democracy. The situation we face now was always going to occur, particularly as the royal family can and do both have a constitutional role and involve themselves in the political realm.
Monica Harding
Does the hon. Member agree that it is quite extraordinary that we are urging the Parliament of a foreign country—Congress—to investigate this matter when it concerns our trade envoy and a member of the royal family?
Brendan O’Hara
There is a slight irony here. We call ourselves the mother of Parliaments and the cradle of democracy, yet when it comes to an issue such as this we are bound by archaic rules that mean that we cannot hold the most powerful people to account. Let’s be honest: there may be some very good members and some very bad members of the royal family, but if we believe in the hereditary monarchy, it is pot luck what we get.
I have seen the rules that have led us to where we are now and it is surely time to review them. It is beyond ridiculous that someone in a similar position could be appointed to exactly the same job as Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was, but, because they have been lucky in the great genealogical sweepstake and found themselves born into the royal family, be automatically above scrutiny and accountability and therefore beyond reproach.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)
I am listening closely to what the hon. Member is saying. Does he agree, given that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is no longer a royal, that nothing is really stopping us having a judge-led public inquiry into his affairs and all that attends them?
Brendan O’Hara
Absolutely; I could not agree more. Isn’t it ridiculous that the King had to strip Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor of his titles and evict him from his home for us to be able to have this discussion? That is what has to change.
In conclusion, I hope the Government not only release everything they hold pertaining to the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor but remove what that great trailblazer, Paul Flynn, the former Member for Newport West, described as the bandages on our mouths so that no one is above the law and no one’s behaviour is beyond scrutiny by Members of this House.
Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)
A lot has been said on the nature of being a trade envoy and the fact that a special trade envoy role was created for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The Minister quite rightly pointed out that today we would not recognise trade envoys as they were then.
The Minister also mentioned the excellent parliamentarian David Heath, who represented Somerton and Frome, which covered part of my constituency. David was a trade envoy when he served in Government. When he was the trade envoy to Nigeria and Angola, the Government would not pay for his yellow fever jabs in case he went somewhere else with yellow fever when not on Government business and derived some private benefit from the jabs, so he had to pay for his own. His wife Caroline tells me that the only thing he got out of his trips was food poisoning. Although it would be nice to think that there was not one rule for some and one for others, there clearly was. It is important that we understand the nature of the brief given to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor when he became trade envoy, because the others certainly were not getting massages on the taxpayer.
Although this debate concerns Mountbatten-Windsor, it is not about one man; it is really about the structural sexism embedded in our institutions. Violence against women and girls does not persist in this country for a lack of speeches in this Chamber, but because, structurally, it is still not treated as foundational to our policymaking. Many Members across this House are utterly committed to tackling violence against women and girls. Many have dedicated their political lives to this cause, often in the face of horrific abuse. This is not a party political issue, nor is it about individual commitment; it is about whether the system itself is designed to prioritise women’s safety. Too often, it is not. Defence, the Treasury and infrastructure are seen as core business, but violence against women and girls is too often siloed—assigned to one Minister, under one strategy—as if the safety of half the population were a niche concern, rather than a central test of whether the state is functioning.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
A powerful illustration of my hon. Friend’s point is that oral questions to the Minister for Women and Equalities is compressed into just 30 minutes before Prime Minister’s questions every few weeks. Does she agree?
Anna Sabine
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I will come to another example of the way in which such sexism is embedded.
I recently wrote to both the Minister for Housing and Planning and the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls to ask why the recent draft national planning policy framework made no mention of the safety of women and girls, as that document sets out how we design and build the spaces and places in which we live. The response from the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government was jaw-dropping. It said:
“The NPPF is a planning document. It sets out guidelines for housebuilding and planning in England. The VAWG strategy is about protecting women and girls from violence and misogyny. It is unclear as to why anyone would expect the two things to be combined.”
If it is unclear to the Department responsible for planning that violence and women and girls should be considered in its work, we have a structural problem.
That is where structural sexism becomes inseparable from power. It matters who makes the decisions. In this country, a remarkably small circle of people—disproportionately male and drawn disproportionately from the same networks—still make the most consequential choices.
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
My hon. Friend is making an important point. On structural violence, women and young girls are the most vulnerable in the face of climate change and natural disasters, because they are exposed to violence and rape when they are displaced from their homes. As trade envoy, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor toured Gulf boardrooms, and met Shell executives and energy conglomerates. That was ermine royal access diplomacy. Just as he showed no conscience in his personal life towards the women and young girls who were victims and survivors of the convicted paedophile Epstein, he did not think in his role as trade envoy about those exposed to structural violence against women and young girls.
Anna Sabine
I totally agree—I could not have said it better.
The people in those circles appoint, defend and rehabilitate one another. Sometimes they do so in ways in which many women looking on would not. When the same small group repeatedly decides what is reputationally survivable, politically convenient and worth overlooking, women’s confidence in our institutions erodes. That is how this circles back to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor: the issue is not only his personal conduct, but the culture of deference, protective networks and systems in which rehabilitation for powerful men can move faster than justice or safety for women. That is precisely why transparency matters. When decisions are taken within small, powerful circles, sunlight is not a luxury; it is a safeguard.
If Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was appointed and maintained as special trade envoy, the public is entitled to understand how that decision was reached, what advice was given, what risks were assessed and who signed it off. We cannot say we are serious about accountability while withholding the very documents that would allow this House and the public to scrutinise how power was exercised. Releasing all correspondence, risk assessments and internal advice relating to his role as trade envoy is not about political point scoring, but about restoring trust. Transparency is the antidote to institutional deference, and without it structural sexism continues to operate behind closed doors.
Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
I pay tribute to all the young women who have risked so much to stand up and push for justice in relation to the vile and corrupt web around the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, and to the crimes and abuse that they suffered as children.
Let me turn to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Transparency about the workings of an organisation is a key way to prevent corruption—sunlight is the best disinfectant—although I appreciate that a police investigation is ongoing and must not be jeopardised. Green MPs support the Liberal Democrat motion. We note that the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) apologised and gave his reasons for saying—when he was in office in 2011—that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was doing an excellent job. That was during the debate held in this House by the late Paul Flynn, the formidable former MP for Newport West, to whom other Members have referred.
The royal family is sheltered from scrutiny in too many ways, and it is now very clear what a risk that poses. We have heard many examples of MPs facing restrictions on what we can ask about royal activity, but it is reasonable and right that we should scrutinise fully any work that they do on the country’s behalf, and consider how those restrictions might be removed. As I understand it, section 37 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 exempts communications between relevant authorities and members of the broader royal family—not just the King—from being released under freedom of information requests. It really is one rule for the rich and powerful and another for the rest of us, a situation which the Minister condemned earlier.
I believe that that serious transparency loophole for royals must be closed. It could mean, for example, that if trade envoy positions are filled by members of the royal family, it would—predictably—be significantly harder for the press, public and MPs to ensure that things are above board, and to get details when things go badly wrong. One example of the effect on transparency is demonstrated in The Guardian today. In a profile piece, the author Andrew Lownie, who wrote the biography “Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York”, talks about stacks of his freedom of information requests being rejected by different Departments. That is why the Humble Address is so important: it would uncover whether those restrictions in the FOI Act were part of the equation in making the appointment.
My early-day motion 2769, which has the support of MPs from six political parties, calls on the King to release all communications between members of the royal family and the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. Obviously, that is just the start of what is needed, which is why I am very grateful for this motion. If the reports that the royal family were aware of concerns about Andrew’s financial dealings ahead of his appointment are correct, there are serious questions about whether and how that knowledge matches the King’s statement following Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest, in which he suggested he had only recently learned about his brother’s misconduct. It is reasonable to raise those questions and find out what advice was given from the palace—including from the King—for or against the appointment.
The royal family’s reactive co-operation with any investigation cannot be enough, because it suggests that they are waiting to be asked by the police, rather than proactively checking their records and visitor logs, speaking with palace and Royal Lodge staff to encourage them to share information with the authorities, and ensuring that there is an effective whistleblowing policy within the palace. We also need to be able to scrutinise the exact provenance of the £12 million payout from Andrew to the brave, late Virginia Giuffre.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor should never have been a trade envoy for this country, but that is not the only matter that requires urgent transparency. His relationship with the child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has turned the nation’s stomach. We also need to know who in the royal household knew what and when, as well as what he did when he was trade envoy. As part of that, I hope that the Minister will make it clear today that royal freedom of information exemptions—which have for too long allowed royal power to act in the shadows, and to conceal important truths from MPs and the public—also need to go.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
I am one of a handful of Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs who were elected in the wake of a political scandal. In my case, in December 2021, it was a financial scandal followed by a cover-up by the then Conservative Government, who tried to get one of their own off the hook. In the midst of my by-election, there were revelations about partygate. It emerged that the then Prime Minister had concluded that a number of the rules that people in this country were subject to did not apply to him. I can remember very clearly knocking on doors during that by-election. I felt my constituents’ anger about the fact that a small group of elite people had concluded that rules that applied to us did not apply to the people at the top of society. I think they would describe that as entitlement. This debate is important because we must restore the trust of the people who voted for me and others elected in by-elections in the wake of scandals. We need to tell the wider British public that we have learned the lessons from the political scandals, cover-ups and entitlement, and we are taking action to restore their trust in what this House is up to and what the wider establishment is allowed to get away with. It is important to hold the powerful to account. Since then, a number of other scandals have further destroyed trust in politics, including the VIP lane for covid contracts, the treachery of Nathan Gill and the appointment of Peter Mandelson.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was intimately involved with Jeffrey Epstein. We have learned in recent weeks that it is probable that their relationship was deeper and continued for much longer than we first thought. That association with one of the most despicable paedophiles in history, at the heart of the British establishment, is absolutely poisonous. The victims and survivors of Epstein’s crimes must have been retraumatised many times over the years by the complicity of those closely associated with him, who did nothing to bring his crimes to public awareness and hold him to account.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Lady makes a really important point about the victims of crimes perpetrated by people in the public eye. It is particularly difficult for those victims, and almost as if the trauma is repeated again and again when these things come to light in the press and the media. Does she agree that, in particular, we need to support victims of crimes of that nature?
Helen Morgan
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be one of those victims—one of those survivors—and to see repeatedly over the years the establishment closing ranks around those who knew Epstein and telling us that everything is okay. The hon. Gentleman is entirely right that this whole process must be extremely painful for everyone involved, so the victims should be foremost in everything we do.
Daisy Cooper
One of the things that I have been struck by as we have heard more and more revelations is that it is difficult for some members of the public to keep up, and that many of them—particularly a number of women—want to turn away from what they see on their screens. Does my hon. Friend agree that what we see unfolding before our eyes is a conspiracy of silence? Horrific acts were allowed to take place in the shadows, and we are increasingly seeing that the arms of the British state protected, facilitated or colluded in horrific acts by people in power. Does she agree that this House must make the boldest statement it can that we will not rest until we have turned over every single stone?
Helen Morgan
My hon. Friend puts it better than I could; she is entirely right. We have seen complicity by people at the heart of the British establishment—we are in the right place to hold them to account—and the international establishment. Either they turned a blind eye to Jeffrey Epstein’s acts, or they were possibly implicated in them—we do not know for sure yet. But those who turned a blind eye must have known what was going on. It is not normal for an older businessman to be surrounded by young teenagers all the time and to receive massages from them—as we know, there were all sorts of other terrible acts. People thought that was somehow normal, acceptable or even admirable. We heard Donald Trump say that some of those girls were “on the younger side”, as if that were something to be applauded. It is appalling. Those people must have known, and if they chose not to look, they are part of the problem.
The decades-long cover-up must have compounded the trauma suffered by those women, who were children at the time. We must put the victims first and allow the police investigations to go ahead, but we need to look at the wider elements of the scandal too.
Layla Moran
Does my hon. Friend share my worry that human trafficking, of which those women were victims, is not currently subject to a police inquiry? It is absolutely right that the police will make their own decisions, but does she agree that the Government must ensure that they have the necessary resourcing so that, if they want to go down that rabbit hole—I urge them to do so actively—they are not stymied by a lack of resources?
Chris Bryant
I urge hon. Members not to speculate on what the police might or might not be investigating.
Helen Morgan
I thank the Minister for that reminder.
I have been astounded by the brilliance of the British media and the journalists who have sifted through thousands and thousands of documents from the Epstein files and, within a really short period, have uncovered a scandal that has rocked the British establishment to its heart, and that has got everybody in this place acting to try to uncover the appalling rot at the heart of the Epstein circle. Yet other jurisdictions have been sitting on those thousands of documents, potentially for decades, and have apparently had no curiosity whatever. That in itself speaks volumes.
The Polish Government have launched an investigation into Epstein’s links with Russia. His links with Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor must be causing enormous concern in the light of that development. It is therefore right that we seek transparency about the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to this role. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) said, this is not about one mistake that led to an individual being in an inappropriate position; it is about the fact that the entire establishment failed to exercise curiosity and undertake due diligence. People put aside what accountants call professional scepticism and carried on with the appointment regardless because an entitled person needed a role.
I am pleased that the Government have agreed to comply with the requests in the Humble Address by publishing the documents. That is really important, because the public need transparency. They need to understand quickly what happened and, crucially, what can be done in the future to prevent such an appointment from being made again. Their trust needs to be restored, including in this place. We need to show that we care enough to hold powerful people to account and ensure that we are always improving public life, not slipping backwards.
The Humble Address seeks answers about how a man with such a questionable reputation came to be appointed to represent the British state, but this debate has highlighted the impenetrable networks of privilege that for decades protected a paedophile and those who surrounded him, possibly for their own gain, and who totally disregarded the victims of his crimes and the wider public, to whom they were apparently indifferent.
When the Government came to power, they promised to clean up British politics, and they have a real opportunity to demonstrate that they are serious about that mission. I hope that they take the opportunity and do the job properly.
Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)
By any measure, this past week has been an extraordinary one in British public life. Within five days, two people have been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office: one a former member of the royal family, and the other a veteran Labour politician who we now understand to be the man who championed the first’s appointment to his public role.
This motion is not an attempt to prejudice a police investigation. We are clear that we must let the police do their work. That investigation must proceed on its own terms, free from political interference.
Criminal law and parliamentary accountability are not the same thing, and they have never been mutually exclusive. Parliament has its own duty to scrutinise public appointments, to follow public money, and to ensure that the institutions of state are answerable to the people they serve. That duty did not disappear when Thames Valley police opened their case files, so let us ask the question that this House should have been asking for years: how did Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor come to be appointed as Britain’s special representative for international trade and investment in 2001, and what did those responsible for that appointment know?
Here is what we do know. The appointment was, by multiple accounts, controversial from the start. Concerns were raised within Government, within the Foreign Office and, reportedly, within the royal family itself, yet he was appointed. For a decade he travelled the globe on the public purse, meeting Heads of State and billionaires, on expenses described by former officials as lavish and poorly scrutinised. He was effectively given a rubber stamp. All the while, his relationship with Epstein deepened—a relationship that the Epstein files now suggest may have been entangled with his official duties in ways that potentially breach both his duty of confidentiality and even the Official Secrets Act.
The documents that might answer those questions should by now be in the national archives under the 20-year rule, but they are not. Every available exemption has been deployed to keep them sealed—national security, international relations, and more. Some, we are told, have been locked away until 2065, and most of us in the Chamber will not be here to read them if they are. As the hon. Members for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O'Hara) and for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry)—she is no longer in her place—have said, the historian Andrew Lownie has spent years attempting to access those files through the proper channels. When asked what he made of that, he said simply:
“Every single reason has been deployed to stop those papers getting out…You have to ask why”.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we are asking why.
Some may ask why, if Parliament has had the tools to scrutinise this issue through a substantive motion, it is happening only now. That is a fair question. No party in over a decade successfully used the parliamentary mechanisms available to force this issue properly. That is not because the rules prevented it; it is because the cultural gravitational pull of deference was so strong that to too many people the sustained rigorous scrutiny of a public figure who happened to be a member of the royal family felt simply not the done thing. The unwritten convention was as powerful, if not more powerful, than the written rule. That is not a procedural failure; it is a failure of political culture, and it is precisely that culture that the motion challenges today.
I came to this place with a background in science, and in any field of systemic inquiry there is an important principle: we cannot correct a failure that we refuse to examine. Institutional failures do not disappear when we look away from them; they compound. The question of how Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor came to be appointed, against objections reportedly raised from multiple directions, and how he was then allowed to operate for a decade with expenses rubber-stamped and minimal oversight, is not ancient history. It is the context in which every subsequent failure of public appointment standards must be understood.
Beyond this motion the Liberal Democrats are calling for structural reforms that match the scale of what has been revealed so far. We want a genuinely independent ethics adviser who is able to initiate investigations, not to have to wait for permission from the Ministers they are supposed to scrutinise. We want an office of the whistleblower, with real legal protections, so that the civil servant who was overruled when they tried to question an expenses claim has somewhere to go. We want a rigorous, transparent confirmatory process for all significant public appointments, with proper parliamentary involvement from the outset, not as an afterthought, and not after the damage has already been done. We want an end to government by WhatsApp, with all official business on the record, all lobbying published, and no more deals done in the dark.
Deference is not respect, silence is not discretion, and secrecy in public life is not safety—it is the condition under which misconduct flourishes. The documents we are asking for should have been in the public domain years ago. This House has the power and responsibility to require their release, and it should do so today.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call Luke Taylor—I know you are in a lot of pain.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. You will have to forgive me for dancing around to aid my pained back.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
That quote from 1887 is of the British historian Lord Acton, and its explains how power in its most essential form inevitably corrupts. Today we are discussing how that absolute power, that feeling of invincibility, has led to the behaviour that Members across the Chamber are all so utterly disgusted by.
I speak on behalf of all residents who have been in touch with me over the last few weeks, whether they are a republican, a monarchist or ambivalent to the general principle. We see a scandal that is not just engulfing Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, but dragging in the integrity of the wider royal family. As was said correctly by the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry), we must ask who knew what and when. What was known about the £12 million that was paid out to Virginia Giuffre in 2022, and how was that allowed to be used to settle a civil suit concerning allegations of Andrew’s alleged offences? How was that allowed to happen in the first place?
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) has said, we have seen one friend of Epstein lobbying for a job for another friend of Epstein, and a 12-year relationship that benefited them both financially, which has resulted in two arrests for misconduct in public office. This Humble Address refers to how that began, and it is absolutely the right place to start. As a politician, trying to convince the public that we are here to serve and represent them, that the conspiracies they read in the darker reaches of the internet are nonsense, and that there is no elite paedophile ring that runs the world’s institutions becomes increasingly difficult when we see links in the files that go directly from the Kremlin to the White House and everywhere in between, including the British royal family.
We talk about standards in public life and integrity, but that is difficult to maintain if such things are known about and the information in the files is understood by the public but we are then unable to scrutinise it or to bring people to this place to ask questions about what has happened. As discussed, the Humble Address covers quite a narrow set of papers about Andrew’s appointment as the special representative for UK trade and industry. However, we have also discussed the parliamentary gymnastics required to get a discussion in the Chamber about the outrageous misdeeds allegedly conducted by that man. We have to call out those parliamentary gymnastics as an outrageous impediment to our performing our job as MPs and we need to dispel them from this place entirely.
We have talked about the implications of Andrew’s position in the line of succession. When the photos of him walking in New York with Jeffrey Epstein were taken in 2011, he was fourth in line to the throne. When that scandal was occurring, he was very close to the throne—it is disgusting. Will the Minister give us an update on legislation that the Government might bring forward to remove Andrew from the line of succession? Andrew is eighth in line now, meaning his position may not be such a worry, but the principle of his being in the line of succession to become our Head of State is obnoxious in the extreme, so I would like to hear an update from the Minister about that.
Layla Moran
People understand that we have a living, breathing, constitutional democracy that grows as society better understands things. If the King does not want Andrew to be a prince, it makes no sense that we still have to bring in legislation to strip him of his dukedom and his earldoms, or that he remains in the line of succession and could potentially be King. There are plenty of other things that we need to be getting on with, but there is a certain logic in this instance that just needs tidying up, if nothing else.
Luke Taylor
I completely agree with my hon. Friend.
I thank the Minister for his early acknowledgment of support for the Humble Address. He has engaged constructively with comments about its scope and exactly what it says. I thank him for his supportive attitude, as there has been across the Chamber.
To return to the point about negative privilege and the fact that we cannot speak freely and have had to use a gymnastic approach to get to the point where we are today, I have submitted a number of requests for urgent questions to the Speaker’s office, which completely understandably has not managed to justify a discussion of the scandal as it has unfolded. By necessity, we have had to phrase the motion as an examination of the prince’s arrangements and his use of property, and there have been all sorts of confusing attempts not to discuss certain matters, which, as has been mentioned, have precluded us from doing so.
Chris Bryant
I hate to add to the hon. Gentleman’s anguish, but there is a convention in the House that we do not refer to requests for urgent questions that have been made to the Speaker.
Luke Taylor
I apologise for breaking that convention, but it is a useful demonstration that, however right the Speaker is in acting with such utter wisdom that we will never question, it remains a challenge to raise issues like this one in the Chamber.
During the debate, Liberal Democrat Members have been clear that we have to have a full statutory inquiry into the whole Epstein affair and the tentacles that it has inserted into our public life. We must allow the criminal investigations to be completed, but the inquiry must be able to compel witnesses to appear, require them to give evidence under oath, and produce documents and other evidence. The inquiry must be used to punish those who have been complicit and have been involved in the heinous crimes we have heard about in the media. To echo the comments made by other hon. Members, the media and journalists have done incredible work investigating the crimes and poring over the files, and their effort cannot be overstated.
To conclude, we have to ensure that the events that have transpired over the last 20 or 30 years as part of the Epstein scandal can never be repeated. The investigation must allow us to fireproof our constitution from similar events ever happening again.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I was going to call Olly Glover, but I was not sure whether the Minister would want to do that, given his earlier intervention.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
This motion is first and foremost about the victims of the appalling crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and his many associates, as well as the importance of protecting people from abuse of power. It also has significant implications for wider political culture.
As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) articulately outlined, this and previous Governments have been wracked by scandal of many kinds, and the whole Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor affair adds to that by making a very significant contribution to the already severe erosion of trust in our politics and institutions. That is why we are calling for a public inquiry into all aspects of UK and British citizen involvement with Jeffrey Epstein over many years. The inquiry would of course take account of police and criminal investigations, disclosure and the publication of relevant documents, but we must go further.
Daisy Cooper
Many people are talking about the different elements that could be examined during an inquiry, but I have heard some people say that an inquiry could become too big and take too long. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is precedent in this country for having public inquiries in two or more parts? The Government and Government Ministers, who I hope are listening, should consider that structure, so that issues that need to be considered urgently could be looked at sooner rather than later.
Olly Glover
My hon. Friend makes a practical proposal for how an inquiry could be conducted efficiently with appropriate prioritisation, so that the most urgent matters get looked at, rather than being bogged down in something that would take much longer.
We must go further. We must toughen the penalties for breaching the ministerial code. We must create an office of the whistleblower to protect, empower and encourage people with valuable information to come forward and to speak up. I support Liberal Democrat calls for an end to negative privilege protections that have prevented criticism of individuals in the royal family in this House, for the reasons set out during the debate.
Helen Morgan
As I have listened to this excellent debate, it has struck me that our establishment depends on the people at its heart being nice, trusted, good sorts who will not step out of line, and we do not have mechanisms in place to challenge when that turns out not to be the case. Does my hon. Friend agree it is important to have an office of the whistleblower, and to have other statutory bodies that put a code in place regarding our behaviour in this place and in wider public life, because such bodies will mean that we will not just rely on people being “good blokes”?
Olly Glover
I agree that far too much in British political and wider culture relies on taking things on trust and assuming that good motives and good intentions will win the day. Very sadly, the whole Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor affair shows that we cannot necessarily rely on that and that we need strong processes, procedures and protocols to make sure that we have the highest standards in public life.
We all hope that the necessary changes to prevent a repeat of the whole Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor affair, which is an abomination, and the wider Epstein disgrace can be made within the structures of our current system of constitutional monarchy. Should that prove not to be the case, then we risk calls for a change to our constitutional arrangements growing louder and more compelling.
Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)
Before we turn to the wider implications of the debate, it is important to acknowledge why the Liberal Democrats are pressing for full transparency today. Serious allegations have been raised about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s conduct during his time as the UK’s trade envoy, including reports that he claimed taxpayer-funded expenses for so-called “massage services” and other inappropriate costs. Former senior officials have described a culture of deference, in which such claims were barely questioned, expenses were rubber-stamped and scrutiny was effectively absent.
Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
We rightly say that no one in the country is above the law, and recent weeks have reinforced that principle. Surely it must also be true that no one is above our democracy. Does my hon. Friend think that the Government should consider bringing the royal household within the scope of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to strengthen confidence in our institutions?
Ben Maguire
I thank my hon. Friend for making that powerful point. That is a really important consideration; I hope that the Minister listened and can respond to it.
These concerns naturally lead to further questions. What did those around Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor know? What did police protection officers, civil servants and officials who accompanied him, travelled with him and were present during official duties observe? What did they record? What did they raise? Crucially, what was dismissed and what was ignored? These are not trivial matters; they speak directly to how an individual in public office was able to behave in ways that would never be tolerated from anyone else and how the institutions around him seemingly completely failed to act.
Luke Taylor
Does the point about what the protection officers knew not show the outrageous power imbalance between a royal and an employee? We are talking about whistleblowing and reporting what has been seen. Is the prospect of having somebody in that situation—whereby they are being held to account for not calling out the behaviour of someone whose privilege and birthright have put them into such a position—not outrageous? Does my hon. Friend agree that this shows how the structure of our constitution has put us into such an outrageous twist and how difficult it will be to unwind that?
Ben Maguire
I completely agree. I suspect that this is just a small start, and that this issue goes much, much wider. I imagine that there is much more information to come.
As the House turns its attention to the matter of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, I want to use this moment to refocus our minds on those who have been most consistently forgotten throughout all this: the victims and survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and the justice they have been denied for far too many years. It is only because of their bravery in coming forward that we know the true extent of Epstein’s crimes and the deeply troubling implications that those crimes hold for our own establishment.
When we talk of these survivors, we must confront an uncomfortable truth: many UK victims are simply too afraid to come forward right now. Their fear is well documented in UK reporting, which describes a
“greater sense of fear and reticence”
among British survivors: a fear of stigma, of being disbelieved and of the powerful networks that have long silenced these women and girls. Yet abuse did happen here in the UK. Epstein carried out wrongdoing during extensive and repeated trips to London. These were not distant or abstract harms; they took place here on UK soil, under UK jurisdiction, and they demand a UK-led response.
Instead of justice here at home, victims were effectively steered, and are still steered, into the US justice system. They are told to seek redress through the Epstein victims’ compensation programme—a fund that ultimately paid $120 million to around 135 survivors, and did so more quickly and confidentially than litigation could. That programme has been open internationally, and victims here in Britain could apply without needing a lawyer, making it less costly and traumatic, but what does it say about our own UK justice system when British victims who were abused here, on British soil, are left seeking justice 4,000 miles away? We are asking traumatised people to navigate foreign bureaucracies because we in the United Kingdom have nothing equivalent to offer them.
What does it say that less than a handful of UK victims even approached a solicitor? That is not because abuse did not happen—we know that it did—but because the absence of any UK prosecution meant that they did not feel empowered to speak. We can draw a stark contrast between figures such as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson, who have allegedly enriched themselves through their associations, and the survivors, who were left fighting for justice.
The Epstein files reveal a powerful network of wealthy people colluding with Epstein, using their privilege to silence and dismiss survivors—a pattern that has been highlighted by the End Violence Against Women coalition. The files expose how powerful men evade consequences while their victims struggle even to be heard, reinforcing the very fear that continues to keep British survivors in the shadows. Surely the role of this House and of any democratic institution worth its name is not simply to reinforce that silence, but to finally break it. That is why we call clearly and firmly today for the UK to open criminal prosecution and survivor-led inquiries into London-based offences.
These alleged crimes fall squarely in the UK’s jurisdiction. The nationality of offenders and victims is irrelevant; what matters is that the harms occurred here, and those harms deserve justice here. Justice for British victims must not be outsourced abroad. Justice must not be dependent on the bravery of a handful who are willing to defy enormous pressure. Justice must not be conditional on navigating a foreign compensation scheme; it should be delivered transparently, confidently and compassionately here in Britain.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend agree that having a public inquiry would be a very public way for the British authorities and the state to show survivors that they have been the victim of some heinous crimes and to give them more confidence to come forward? We know that survivors of all kinds of sexual abuse and rape across this country—whether they are part of some big scandal, such as those of Mohamed Al-Fayed or Epstein, or something much more local and individual—are being retraumatised again and again by seeing this matter splashed across the front pages of the papers and all over the media, day after day. We have to make a stand and say, “Enough. We will not tolerate this in this country.” We have to stand up to these powerful men who silence their victims and ensure that they have to fight for justice every step of the way.
Ben Maguire
I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention; I could not agree more. We very much need a public inquiry to expose all the harms done to the victims and how the establishment in our country has seemingly played such a central role in that.
If our Government are sincere when they speak of a fairer, safer and more accountable society, they must show leadership rather than continued deference. They must show survivors that they will be believed, protected and heard in the UK. At the heart of this matter are not titles, reputations or institutions, but people—survivors, whose lives, like the victims of domestic abuse, have been shaped by fear, silence and power wielded against them, rather than for them. They deserve far better; they deserve a justice system that will fight for them.
Now is the time for immediate action. Will the Minister please consider not redacting any of the documents that do not relate to the ongoing police investigation? As my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) suggested, will the Government look at a full public inquiry into Epstein and his links to the British establishment? Finally, will the Minister go away and look to end the appalling negative privilege that prevents MPs in this House from speaking freely about members of the royal household?
This matter is a disgusting symptom of the deference that we have shown to those in positions of power at the cost of victims. Our constituents should no longer be silenced in what should be our proud British democracy.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
We have had an extremely powerful debate. I will address a number of the points raised, but I want to start by talking about how the revelations of recent weeks and months have been shattering for the British public and deeply, deeply distressing for many of those directly impacted.
We have listened to the gut-wrenching stories of abuse endured by vulnerable women and girls. We were reminded by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) that we are, in many cases, talking about children. We have learned of the arrogance and cruelty of rich, powerful men who felt that no rules applied to them and who made a mockery of our values and laws. We have seen laid bare the hollowness of a political establishment that was manipulated so easily and that treated state secrets like cheap gossip.
Public trust has been catastrophically undermined by the Epstein saga, and we are now at a crossroads in our public life. If Parliament does not act with courage, faith in our institutions will suffer even more permanent harm, and they will remain under intense public suspicion and unease. To start to repair the damage, we must uncover the full and unvarnished truth. Critical to that process is demanding that every relevant Department comes clean and shares what was known about Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment as special representative for trade and investment. What concerns were raised ahead of his appointment, did his suitability come into question, and what risks were identified throughout that process? The British people deserve to know what behaviour was tolerated, and by whom.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
On that point, I have been contacted by a constituent who played a public role in the middle east. They said that during their time in that role, they had to go through incredible checks—background checks and so on. Does my hon. Friend agree that the release of these files would enable us to see whether the same background checks that are applied to citizens like us in public life are applied to the royal family?
Lisa Smart
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention, and to her constituent who has contacted her about that important point. My view, and the view of the Liberal Democrats, is that we should get to the bottom of how this role was created and the vetting that was done before the appointment, in order to understand the extent—or lack of extent—of that vetting. If somebody is being paid from the public purse, they should be held to an extremely high standard and there should be transparency about their role and the creation of that role, so I very much agree with my hon. Friend.
The public deserve to know whether sections of their Government at the time put in place systems to shield Mountbatten-Windsor from accountability, even at a cost to the national interest. Of course the police must undertake their work unimpeded, and of course anybody who has committed a crime should face justice if they are found to have committed that crime, but a police investigation—no matter what prosecution it leads to—is not enough. It is essential for the strength of our constitution and our social fabric that we go further and clean up the broken system that facilitated this scandal in the first place.
Daisy Cooper
One point that has been raised this afternoon is that even while the police go ahead with their investigations, there is still a job for this House to do. It strikes me that some of the most basic principles that we assume when we come to this place are being questioned. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is worth restating, for the record and for the public, that there are certain principles in public life that we have to make sure remain in place, as this case highlights? No one is above the law; taxpayers’ money and public office must be used for the public interest, not for private gain; Parliament has not just the right, but the duty, to hold the powerful to account and pursue all means of transparency; and ultimately, all powerful people must face a reckoning if they were involved in this scandal.
Lisa Smart
I wholly agree with my hon. Friend, who has made a number of powerful interventions throughout this debate. This whole sorry saga repeatedly brings up arrogant, greedy men—mostly men—who have sought to enrich themselves further and increase their power.
Luke Taylor
I hope this intervention adds to my hon. Friend’s point. Does she find it ironic that the only person who has been imprisoned as part of the Epstein scandal is a woman?
Lisa Smart
My hon. Friend is not the only person to refer to structural sexism in this debate. In particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine) made an extremely powerful speech about how, should we choose to do so as a Parliament, we could embed looking at sexism—at violence against women and girls—in our policymaking and our thinking in a way that would benefit the whole of society. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) for raising the point that there remain many people who the hand of justice is yet to seek out with the full vigour it should.
We should be pulling back the curtain on Andrew’s use of the special envoy role and the whole system around him, on the power he had in an official, state-sanctioned position, and on the many missed opportunities for scrutiny and accountability, not least in this place. A number of Members from both sides of the House have talked about the importance of pace and speed; the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop) made a very good point about making sure we get on with some of this work, which he also raised yesterday with the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister; and the Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), reminded us that the wheels of justice often grind slowly. My deputy leader and hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) presented some practical solutions for how we can make sure progress continues at pace, so that one thing does not hold up another, and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), reminded us that police involvement in this matter should not unduly delay the whole process. Of course, it is vital that the police should be free to do their job and do it well, but that should not unduly hold up the release of the information we are seeking.
We Liberal Democrats very much welcome support from across the Chamber for our motion, including from Members on the Treasury Bench. When the Minister winds up in a few moments, I would be grateful if he confirmed—like when the Government responded to the previous Humble Address that we discussed in this place—that any information will be released when it is available, only holding back that information that is directly relevant to a police investigation.
Daisy Cooper
A few moments ago, my hon. Friend referred to a comment that I made earlier in the debate. I am mindful that the Minister was not in his place at the time, so I wonder whether I could be indulged. [Interruption.] No, it was a separate point that I made later, when the Minister was out of the room for a second. Because there are so many things that could be examined during a public inquiry, I wondered whether Ministers would consider having an inquiry made up of two, three or more parts, given that there is precedent for such a thing. Might that be an answer, to ensure that some things that need to be examined earlier are not delayed too long? With the Minister now in his place, does my hon. Friend agree that we might hear from him on that point when he winds up?
Lisa Smart
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding us all of that insightful comment. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches have been fizzing with ideas. We have a real opportunity to improve our processes and our systems, and if the bravery of the women who have come forward to talk about their horrific abuse and their experience can reach its full potential, it is by improving the system so that things like this do not just keep happening.
A number of colleagues on both sides of the House have talked about a conspiracy of silence and the role of deference—the leader of Plaid Cymru, the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), used the word “sycophancy”, and I think she was absolutely right to do so. This has come from the whole establishment over several decades. A number of colleagues have talked about the role of journalists, which was a really interesting point. Some have talked about those who can be rightly proud of the role they have played in increasing transparency, accountability and the public’s understanding, but the Minister was also absolutely right to talk about some of the people who minimised child abuse and statutory rape, whose comments have not aged well, and who should reflect on some of what was said at the time.
This afternoon, we have also spoken about our own procedures in this place. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam used the phrase “parliamentary gymnastics”—that is not a phrase I am going to spend too long thinking about. We have spoken about the role of some of our predecessors—Paul Flynn has been talked about a lot—and about negative privilege not really being fit for purpose in this day and age. We need processes and procedures that enable us to do our job. We should be holding the powerful to account, and there should be power within Parliament to allow us to do so and to scrutinise decisions before they are made, as well as afterwards.
Helen Morgan
The scandal surrounding Jeffrey Epstein is reminiscent of other, similar scandals—perhaps not on the same scale, but certainly of a similar magnitude in terms of their impact on the victims. The one that comes to mind is the Jimmy Savile scandal, where people who knew what was going on did not feel able to speak up and break that conspiracy of silence, so victims did not feel able to come forward either. Does my hon. Friend agree that by embracing this opportunity to change the way we do things in Parliament, we can create a culture where people do feel empowered to come forward and break that conspiracy of silence, and where people who have observed things that they knew they should have reported do not feel constrained in their ability to report them, to ensure these terrible scandals do not happen in the future?
Lisa Smart
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention; she made a number of very good points this afternoon reminding us of previous scandals and the importance of ensuring that we learn from them.
In the Peter Mandelson debate a few weeks ago, in which I sat in the same place, I think it was the hon. Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet) who talked about shame needing to change sides. That alludes to some of the cultural changes that we need to bring about. We as parliamentarians have a leading role to play in bringing about the cultural changes that we need to see. Anybody who is a victim or survivor must know that the stigma is not with them but with the perpetrators, and anybody who turns a blind eye should know that the stigma is with them for doing so.
Nobody should be above the law, and nobody in public office or in receipt of public funds should be out of the reach of parliamentary scrutiny.
Layla Moran
I am reminded of the debate brought forward by the Conservatives on Lord Mandelson and the proverbial parliamentary knickers-twisting that had to happen to work out that the way to deal with the issue of the intelligence services was indeed to allow the Intelligence and Security Committee to look at the papers. Is it not the case that we have the mechanisms in this place to scrutinise most things, but when it comes to the royal family we do not? Even if a Select Committee wants to do something on these matters, we self-censor with our own conventions that we apply to ourselves. Only we can change that. I am curious to know what the Government are going to do and whether there is a mechanism by which we change those conventions, because they are clearly the nub of the issue when it comes to parliamentary scrutiny.
Lisa Smart
Nobody should be above the law, and nobody should be above scrutiny. When good people get together, there is a willingness to embrace creativity and the nerdery of parliamentary procedures so that we can find a way to get to the truth that we need to get to.
Trust in our politics is vital, and trust in our institutions is further eroded every time we have one of these debates. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) talked about the impact on the reputation of this House and the vital role of trust in politics. There are too many people involved in politics for whom a lack of trust in politics is really useful. The stoking of division and mistrust means that there is space for voices that, in my view, are not welcome and we should reject. It is in all our interests and the whole country’s interest for there to be trust in our institutions and our political set-up.
During the debate we have been reminded of the need for proper processes to be in place. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) reminded us, not everybody can be relied on to be a good bloke. Many of our systems are based on gentlemen’s agreements and just expecting people to be a good bloke—and as has been repeatedly proven, it is simply not the case that people will be.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
In serving for a number of years as a senior civil servant, I experienced in Whitehall the impression that the monarchy should be protected and that nothing should be done to embarrass the royal family. I hope the materials we are seeking the release of through today’s Humble Address will ensure that we can scrutinise whether civil servants’ ability to check whether Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was an appropriate person to be a trade envoy was impeded, and will shed light on the relationship that should exist between Whitehall and the monarchy in the future.
Lisa Smart
I very much agree with my hon. Friend. We have seen some press reports about civil servants who were doing their job and absolutely rightly questioning some of the expenses that were being put through, but they were overruled. That clearly is not good enough and not acceptable, and it is not what we should expect from our institutions and establishment. I completely agree about the importance of being clear about what we expect when somebody takes on a public role at cost to the taxpayer.
We should have very high standards. We should, as the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) said, talk about how we can ensure that those with power are held to account. She was entirely right in the points she made about what we do with this information, where we go with it and how we build from here.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) made a really strong speech in which he gave very constructive suggestions to the Minister of measures that we Liberal Democrats would support in bringing about change to the system.
David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)
My hon. Friend will be aware that we are in the week of St David’s day, which is a terribly important day for all of us in Wales. In terms of accountability, she will be very aware of the long-standing stance that the Liberal Democrats have taken on the Crown Estate, which in Wales regrettably still has not been devolved. Its powers and funding have been devolved to Scotland, but not—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Can I just check whether the Member has been here for a while or just arrived? Members should not be intervening after traipsing in during a speech. I will allow Ms Smart to continue.
Lisa Smart
I will stick more within the tramlines of the debate that we have all enjoyed today, though I think devolution is a very good thing of which there should be more.
Parliament is calling today for transparency. The public deserve answers, not further silence. Cleaning up public life means acting quickly, openly and honestly. This goes to heart of public trust. Sadly, what we are talking about today is ultimately not an isolated incident. There has been a drumbeat of scandals. We have had mention of partygate, and in other debates recently we have talked about Nathan Gill’s treachery. Peter Mandelson has also been mentioned. All those things further shatter trust in our politics. It is obvious that the current system is broken, so it is beholden on all of us to take action. We need to clear out the rot, and we will keep pushing until corrupt and criminal behaviour is stamped out and the muck is cleared out of our democracy.
We are campaigning for a public inquiry into Epstein and his relationship with the British establishment. A number of contributors this afternoon referenced the Polish Government’s investigation into Russian links with Epstein, and it will be very interesting to see what that investigation turns up. The Humble Address is very clear that we want the publishing of all the relevant documents relating to the appointment as a special representative for trade and industry. We should see an end to negative privilege. MPs should be able to speak freely in this place about concerns that they have and disclose information in this place, even if the individual in the public post is a member of the royal household.
We should go further: we should have criminal sanctions for public figures who fail to whistleblow. My hon. Friend the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) talked about the importance of having an office of the whistleblower. We should have new legal protections for whistleblowers and a dedicated office of the whistleblower.
Daisy Cooper
My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. It has been a Liberal Democrat policy for a very long time to have an office of the whistleblower, and we very much hope that the Government take up that proposal. We have tried a number of times to introduce it through pieces of legislation in the other House in this Session.
There will be people at home listening to this debate who themselves may have information and want to volunteer it but do not know how to—they do not know whether to write to their MPs or whether there is a formal way in which they can bring the information forward. We have heard examples this afternoon from some speakers about information that they have heard or about intelligence officials who knew something. I wonder whether my hon. Friend has any thoughts on that and whether we might hear from the Minister what the Government’s message is to those people about who they should contact.
Lisa Smart
My hon. Friend is entirely right that a public inquiry is the best way to bring to light a number of the issues that we are talking about today. It is increasingly clear that there are people who were silent when they should have been loud. There are people who knew things who did not share them, and there are people in our country today who will know information that could usefully contribute to getting to the bottom of what happened—who knew what and when and, importantly, how we can stop this from continuing to happen in our system.
My hon. Friend is right to encourage anybody out with information to come forward and contribute. Today we have heard from colleagues who have worked internationally in different roles, and that is just the sample of Members who have been in the Chamber today; there will be countless people across the country who may have information, and she is entirely right to encourage them to come forward.
The people who have led to us being here today are the victims and survivors of Epstein and his cronies. My hon. Friend the Member for Frome and East Somerset talked about structural sexism and how people were not listened to, and other colleagues have referred to how victims and survivors were often not believed or, importantly, thought that they would not be believed. That stops us getting to the bottom of things like this.
Anna Sabine
On the point about structural sexism, it is not so much about the fact that people should be listened to, although that is absolutely right; it is more about the fact that we have a problem at the moment, particularly where there is a small group of leading figures in Government, who tend to be men. If we do not have women in those places and spaces, a lot of these issues do not get picked up or treated in the way in which they might do if there were women in the room. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is good to see that the Prime Minister currently has some chiefs of staff who are women and that we would be pleased to see more women in key advisory roles, not simply as Ministers and Secretaries of State?
Lisa Smart
My hon. Friend is entirely right to make that point. The tone of some of the briefings about Ministers and Secretaries of State is notably different when it is a woman who holds office, and all the evidence shows that the best decisions are made by balanced teams that draw on a broad range of experiences. If everybody went to the same school or had the same experience, those teams will be missing an awful lot. My hon. Friend is entirely right to talk about elected Members and Ministers, but also about the officials who are working with them, advising them and supporting them. That is an extremely well-made point. Only when we have elected as many mediocre women to this place as we have mediocre men will we have achieved equality. [Laughter.]
But it should not have taken the bravery of victims in speaking up about their experience and seeking justice over years for Epstein’s cycle of cruelty and criminality to finally be interrupted. Where would we be if victims of Epstein, like Virginia Giuffre, had never come forward and if the right photograph had not been taken at the right time? We are left to wonder if Andrew might easily have remained a special representative today, operating without proper scrutiny and continually disgracing his office.
Once again, we urge the Government to commit to a statutory inquiry into Epstein’s links to our establishment, including Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, so that we can develop a full understanding of how it served him, what networks were formed that facilitated a prolific paedophile, and how widespread the complicity goes. Crucially, an inquiry can point us to what must change to protect people in the future. I also urge the Government and Members present to bring any further vital information to light right now, to ensure that there is no delay to essential scrutiny and transparency.
Andrew’s role as an envoy and the engagements he undertook were determined by those at the very highest levels of political power, including in the Downing Street of the time, and it is increasingly clear that he was protected, even while he betrayed public trust in his position as a special representative. He was protected by outdated rules that forbid Members of this place from raising concerns about any member of the royal household in most debates in Parliament. I fear that he was protected by powerful friends and allies repeatedly, and by a number of people failing to raise the alarm.
Today we can start to set that right. If we really believe that nobody is above the law, it must surely follow that no appointment is above scrutiny, that no one’s abuse of their public office should be hidden from the public gaze, and that no truth is too uncomfortable to come into the disinfectant of daylight.
Chris Bryant
I spoke earlier, so I need to be sure that the House is happy for me to speak again. I am not going to speak at great length. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I have united the House twice today. That is a great comfort to me.
First of all, may I commend the Liberal Democrats on the debate that they have held and on bringing this issue to us? Members on both sides of the House have made very powerful speeches, including my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and the hon. Members for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding), for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O'Hara), for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine), for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry), for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom), for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor), for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) and for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart). I appreciate that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), is not able to be here; he sent me a kind note to explain why.
As I said right at the beginning of my opening speech, it is the Government’s intention to comply with the motion as soon as is practicable and possible within the law. As I have said from the beginning, my only caveat is that my Department and the whole of Government will work towards maximum transparency and timeliness, but I have to say that where documents may speak materially to the offence of misconduct in public office or any other offence that may be considered by the police, we will have to follow the advice of the prosecuting authorities. I do not think anybody disagrees with that. It is a different point from some of the other points that have been raised in relation to other humble addresses, but I think it is an important one.
I hear the calls that have been made by several hon. Members for a public inquiry. One of the other things in which I was engaged in 2011 was a big row about phone hacking at the News of the World, and we demanded a public inquiry. We ended up with a two-part public inquiry, and the second part was not going to happen until the police had completed their investigations. Of course, it never happened, because so much time had elapsed, so I am somewhat cautious about seeking multi-part public inquiries in relation to this issue. I want the police to be able to do their work as effectively as possible.
I will issue another word of caution. I was in the House when Members, understandably, used their privilege to talk about Sir Leon Brittan. It turned out that many of the things that were said at the time were completely and utterly untrue, and people had been misled by somebody. We always have to be cautious about the way we use our privilege in this House, and I will come on to the bigger point about what others have referred to as “negative privilege” in a moment.
We are very keen to work with the prosecuting authorities as fast as possible, but the timetable for that is set by them, not us. We want them to do their job without fear or favour. The one message that we have sent today to the whole of society is that the prosecuting authorities must proceed without fear or favour. Nobody is above the law.
Rachael Maskell
I am really grateful to the Minister for what he has said. Although the prosecuting authorities will clear up the criminal matters, the implications go way beyond that. What thought has the Minister given to how they are dealt with—for instance, the closing of the loopholes around our airports, access into the country, visas, and obviously the privileges held within decision making at the heart of Government?
Chris Bryant
I hear the points that my hon. Friend makes, and of course I sympathise with them. However, it is remarkably difficult to disentangle some of those from possible offences on which prosecutions may be brought, so I am somewhat cautious in this area, as she will hear. She will know that I can sometimes be as vociferous as her on these issues, but at this particular moment I want to be cautious.
I want to talk about the issue of negative privilege, which several Members have mentioned. I fully understand the point, which I myself made back in 2011, when I had a bit of a row with Speaker Bercow about it. I fully understand the point that Members have made, and I do not think we should have excessive deference. Of course, it is a matter for the House, for Mr Speaker and the Deputy Speakers, and for the Procedure Committee and others, whether we want to change the accepted conventions of the House. It is a Back-Bench Committee, and if Members want to take such issues to the Procedure Committee, they should do so.
However, I do not think we should overstate the case, because if at any point any of the political parties had wanted to bring a substantive motion to the House, whether in opposition or in government, anybody would have been able to do so, but the truth of the matter is that all of us chose not to. Whether that is because of deference, I cannot judge, but it is certainly true that using a substantive motion is available to us to consider such matters.
Chris Bryant
I will continue for a moment, if the hon. Members do not mind.
We do enjoy freedom of speech in this House, and it is precious. As hon. Members will know, article 8 of the Bill of Rights says that no proceeding in Parliament shall be impeached in any court of law or any other place, which means we can say things here without the threat of being prosecuted anywhere else. It is a really important and precious privilege, and one that we must guard carefully, which is why we have a sub judice rule. Mr Speaker has decided that the rule does not apply to today’s debate, because no charges have yet been brought—when the sub judice rule applies is quite specific.
I do think that we need to guard that privilege quite carefully, because we have a separation of powers. We do not think that we should have Acts of attainder, with the House deciding by a Bill that somebody is guilty of some crime or other. That is a matter for the prosecuting authorities, and the person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
I think the hon. Gentleman with a bad back wanted to intervene.
Luke Taylor
I thank the Minister—I am not sure whether I do thank him—but I want to push back gently on that, and I would be interested in his response. Does not the fact that we have had 15 years since Andrew resigned in disgrace and it did not come before Parliament demonstrate that there is such a reluctance, or is it a true misunderstanding of process that that did not come before the House for us to discuss and really get into the weeds of the matter? Does he not see that as demonstrating the need for a change in the process, or at least an acknowledgment that we need to be digging deeper into these issues?
Chris Bryant
Well, yes, and I also think that the truth of the matter is that we probably need more Paul Flynns. I have always been a bit sceptical about independent MPs, but I have always been very much in favour of independently minded MPs, who are one of the backbones that really allow Parliament to function effectively. I love the Whips—of course I love the Whips—but there is a but.
I will give way to the hon. Lady, and then I really do want to finish my remarks.
Layla Moran
I hear the Minister’s scepticism about a public inquiry, but the more this debate has gone on, the more I have felt that this is an issue of culture. There are things material to how we have ended up where we are that will not meet an evidentiary threshold and have not contravened any laws, but that clearly do need changing, and what needs changing is the overall culture in our establishment itself. If we do not need a public inquiry to examine this in the round on the basis of everything we know—and I understand his arguments for why it should not be—then how do we do this?
Chris Bryant
Yes, I myself made all those arguments about phone hacking in 2011. A chunk of us had to persuade our own political party to be brave on the matter at a time when that was not easy, because the whole media were not in favour of us moving on that. The point I would make is that I think the single most important thing for a Member of Parliament is that they should feel able to speak without fear or favour.
Chris Bryant
All the Lib Dems are now trying to intervene on me, and I am trying to make a very short speech. It was meant to be five minutes, and it is now already nine minutes, so I am failing miserably. All right, I give way.
Daisy Cooper
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, but I want to press him on that point again. There are some specific allegations that an inquiry might want to look at, but there is the broader point about culture, which my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) mentioned. He will know very well—in the context of phone hacking, but also in looking at the culture of the Metropolitan police—that there are many examples in the not-too-distant history, or in our recent history, when an inquiry has looked separately at the culture of an institution as opposed to specific allegations and what specifically went wrong. If he is concerned about a two or three-part inquiry, with a second or third part being cancelled in the future, that simply requires a small amendment to the Inquiries Act 2005. I do think it is important to press him on the point that there is a cultural issue here, and we do want the cultural issue to be looked at.
Chris Bryant
I completely agree that there is a cultural issue that needs to be looked at. I am certainly not able to commit the Government today to a public inquiry—I think all Members accept that I am not going to do that—but I am also not entirely convinced that public inquiries actually often end up changing culture. Culture changes because we choose to. [Interruption.] I note that the Whips have a terrible case of coughing, but I want to end with a few more short points.
The first point relates to trade envoys. I want to praise the work of our present trade envoys—not just from the Labour party and not just from this House—who are helping us to win contracts around the world. They are all accountable through the Minister for Trade and the Department. I would quite like there to be more questions about trade envoys at Business and Trade questions, which are coming up in the near future.
On the Act of succession, which the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam asked me about, we are working at pace on this, and we intend to bring forward legislation when we can. I cannot commit to a particular date on that, but I note that Julie Andrews, in “The Sound of Music”, sang,
“I have confidence that spring will come again”,
so I have confidence that the Act of succession will come around at pace.
The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam also said:
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The cultural point I will make is that, actually, this was not about power; this was about influence. Influence can be just as pernicious in the body politic as anything else, and that is one of the things we need to address, because it can lead to corruption.
I will end with this point. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said, “Let’s make sure this never happens again.” Of course, every single Member of this House would hope that we never again see the horrific abuse that happened under Jeffrey Epstein and the concatenation of different forms of abuse that were created by the complicity of people from so many different sectors—people turning a blind eye and people participating, whether because they loved wealthy people, they loved the wealthy lifestyle or whatever it may be. Of course, I would dearly love to be able to stand at this Dispatch Box and say that it will never happen again, but I would bet my bottom dollar that there will be young people today who are being abused by rich, wealthy, arrogant, entitled people, and it will continue. Yes, we must do everything in our power to make sure that deference, influence and complicity do not allow that to happen, but in the end the only recourse we have is to the court of law, to ensure that those who abuse their position of trust face the full rigour of the law.
Question put and agreed to,
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, that he will be graciously pleased to give directions to require the Government to lay before this House all papers relating to the creation of the role of Special Representative for Trade and Investment and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment to that role, including but not confined to any documents held by UK Trade and Investment, British Trade International (BTI) and its successors, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister’s Office containing or relating to advice from, or provided to, the Group Chief Executive of BTI, Peter Mandelson, the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister regarding the suitability of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor for the appointment, due diligence and vetting conducted in relation to the appointment, and minutes of meetings and electronic communications regarding the due diligence and vetting.