Security Vetting

Debate between Baroness Foster of Oxton and Baroness Smith of Basildon

Monday 20th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My understanding is that the Foreign Office was asked to provide this to No. 10 and the Prime Minister. I could not tell the noble Lord who asked who, but the information was requested as it had been raised. However, they were never informed that there had been a recommendation; they were told that the appointment had been passed by the Foreign Office, but were not told that it was against the recommendation of UKSV.

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, I first echo the comments made by my noble friend Lord True, who had some very searching questions. I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for the Statement today. My question is one that I have raised twice before. There will be long and thorough discussions concerning the vetting process. However, we know that, despite the vetting process taking place following the Prime Minister’s decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as our ambassador to the United States of America, at the time of the appointment, the Prime Minister knew that Lord Mandelson had remained friendly with a convicted paedophile. These are two separate issues. When we look at judgment, therefore, does the noble Baroness the Leader of the House really consider that the Prime Minister showed any judgment at all?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I have already been clear to the House that I trust the Prime Minister’s judgment. The noble Baroness is raising two quite separate things. On the first, the Prime Minister is clear that, when the due diligence process was undertaken, he was not given accurate information by Peter Mandelson. He has said that he would have made a different decision based on that information.

The issue of vetting is different and covers issues such as national security. It is inconceivable that, when the recommendation from UK Security Vetting was that clearance should not be granted, it was not accepted by the Foreign Office, and that the Prime Minister and other Ministers were not told. I come back to the point that I made to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick: what is the point of having this intrusive and robust process if the information is not given to those who make the decisions?

NATO and European Political Community Meetings

Debate between Baroness Foster of Oxton and Baroness Smith of Basildon

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, I echo the comments made by my noble friend regarding UNRWA, because we know that it has been a corrupt organisation and that there were members who were involved in the attacks on 7 October. My point is about the £84 million that the noble Baroness said government was going to give in aid to Africa and the Middle East, which sounds very promising. Can the Leader of the House please give us details of what those projects are going to be? Can she also tell us who will be responsible for the oversight of them, because this is a huge amount of taxpayers’ money?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I do not have full details of all the programmes yet; we will try to update the House as we go on. However, work will be around the issues that drive those people to leave their countries. There will be some work on climate change, which we have spoken about, but also on issues such as trying to ensure that people have a future in their own country—for example, on provision of skills and education. Just look at how bad girls’ education in particular is around the world—I pay tribute to the work Gordon Brown has done on this. Those are the kinds of issues that force people to try to seek a better life somewhere else. There has to be hope in their own countries for them as well. The kinds of projects that we will be working with are around access to clean water and to a decent standard of living. We will update the House as more information becomes available.