Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address Motion

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I thank the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. It is a stain on our nation that we are even having to go through this. It is right that we keep Epstein’s victims, survivors and families at the front of our mind.

Today marks the first day of Britain’s own Epstein files. For a close friend of Epstein to have been made Britain’s ambassador to the United States is a shameful part of this affair; that is the Prime Minister’s responsibility. It is disappointing that the Prime Minister is not here to answer for that, and for his catastrophic failure of judgment with respect to Mandelson.

Peter Mandelson’s close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and the fact that it continued long after long after Epstein’s conviction for child sex trafficking, had been reported by both Channel 4’s “Dispatches” in 2019 and the Financial Times in 2023. Has the Prime Minister told the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister personally how those reports made him feel, and why he still felt it was right to appoint Mandelson anyway? Mandelson’s £75,000 payout is an insult to Epstein’s victims—if he had a shred of decency left he would donate it to charity—but the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister’s explanation of why the Government made that payout simply will not wash.

With a very limited number of documents being released today, the wait goes on for the rest of Britain’s Epstein files. That includes the documents relating to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor required by the Liberal Democrats’ Humble Address, which was passed a fortnight ago. I very much hope that the Government will get those documents out as quickly as possible. It has taken five weeks from the Mandelson Humble Address to publication today. Will the Chief Secretary guarantee that the first Andrew papers will be published within the same timeframe, and by 31 March at the latest?

[Darren Jones]

As I have said to the House, the Prime Minister regrets having appointed Peter Mandelson ambassador to the United States. It was the wrong decision, and he has apologised for it.

On severance, as I said, the Government would not have wanted to give £1 to Peter Mandelson, but it was the quickest way to remove him as ambassador and a member of the civil service. As the leader of the Liberal Democrats said—the Government agree with him—the honourable thing to do would be to donate that money to an appropriate charity.

On the Liberal Democrats’ Humble Address, that is being managed by the Department for Business and Trade; it is working on that now, and will come forward with updates in due course. As I said in my statement, the Cabinet Office will come back with a further tranche of documents in relation to the Humble Address as soon as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) for her powerful and courageous speech in the debate on jury trials yesterday—I really hope the Prime Minister was listening.

Thirty years ago this week, a man carried four handguns into Dunblane primary school and murdered a teacher and 16 children. I was deeply moved by the BBC documentary about it last night and by the courage of the parents who campaigned for a ban on handguns to keep other children safe, including Mick North, who lost his five-year-old daughter, Sophie, on that dark day. Mr North has rightly called on the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) to renounce his description of the handgun ban as “ludicrous”—something the hon. Member still refuses to do. Mr North has also called for a review of firearms legislation to close any loopholes. Does the Prime Minister agree?

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly do. We must never forget the horror of Dunblane and we must never forget the young children and their teacher who did not come home from school. The campaign that families fought to make this country a safer place is a lasting legacy, and we should be enormously grateful for their courage.

[Ed Davey]

I thank the Prime Minister for his reply, and I hope the Government will close any loopholes.

This week, families across the country have seen petrol prices rise at the pump, mortgage rates go up and fixed energy deals get more expensive, all because of a war they did not start and do not support. The Leader of the Opposition has been competing with the hon. Member for Clacton to be Donald Trump’s biggest cheerleader, and the Prime Minister was right to reject their costly warmongering. Last week, I asked him to guarantee that energy bills will not rise by hundreds of pounds in July. He did not answer, so let me try again: will he give people that energy bill guarantee now?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising this matter, because people will be really worried about the impact on them. To reassure households, the cap is in place until the end of June—until July—so that deals with the situation for households. We are working with the sector and others, and with allies, to do everything we can to ensure that energy bills do not rise. We are working around the clock on that. The most important and most effective thing we can do is to work with our allies to find a way to de-escalate the situation.

The right hon. Gentleman is right about the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of Reform. Last week, they were urging us to join—[Interruption.] This is serious. [Interruption.] If they had been leading the country, we would be in a war. They have now come to Parliament to say—

Middle East

Ed Davey Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement and for my security briefing.

Once again, President Trump has launched a unilateral and unlawful act. Ayatollah Khamenei was a brutal dictator and a monstrous war criminal. He supported Hamas and the 7 October atrocities, and he massacred thousands of his own people for daring to protest against decades of repression. I shed no tears for him. Instead, I think of all the innocent Iranian civilians who have lost their lives. I think of the US service personnel killed in action, our allies and partners in the region who are being outrageously targeted by Iran, and our British bases which have already faced attack. They did not choose this war; Donald Trump did, and he will bear responsibility for it.

We have seen before what happens when an American President launches an illegal war with no idea how or when it is going to end, and we fear for what comes next. In discussions with the White House, has the Prime Minister demanded to find out Trump’s plan for what comes next? Does the Prime Minister understand that when he fails to stand up to Trump, especially when he breaks international law, it makes our country less safe? How will the Prime Minister be sure that defensive operations from UK bases will not become offensive? In rightly protecting our allies in the region, can we be assured by the Prime Minister that he will not follow Trump’s lead down a slippery slope into a protracted conflict?

Finally, we rightly expect our brave armed forces to protect British citizens around the world in crises like this, but that includes tax exiles like Isabel Oakeshott and washed-up old footballers who mock ordinary people who stay in the UK and pay our taxes here. As we protect them, does the Prime Minister agree that it is only right for tax exiles to start paying taxes to fund our armed forces, just like the rest of us do?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Member for his question. I agree that the response of Iran has been outrageous, particularly the hitting of countries that played no part in the strikes.

We have had extensive discussions with the United States at all levels, including the military-to-military level, continually over the course of the weekend. We deliberately took the decision not to join the offensive strikes that were carried out by the US and Israel. We did take the decision to take defensive action—first, by ourselves on Saturday with putting pilots in the sky, and, secondly, by allowing the bases to be used for purely defensive reasons. We clearly set out the legal basis upon which we took the second of those decisions. On the question about limits, it is limited to defence, and that is the basis upon which we have agreed the basing.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s last point, I want to be clear that it is my duty—our duty—to protect all UK nationals in the region. We will endeavour to do everything we can in order to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I join the Prime Minister in congratulating Team GB on our most successful winter Olympics ever. I also join him in solidarity with our Ukrainian allies and friends after four years of them resisting Vladimir Putin’s war machine.

The former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has raised deeply shocking concerns that Jeffrey Epstein may have used British airports, and even RAF bases, to traffic young women and girls in and out of our country. This is appalling. The Prime Minister knows that I agree with Gordon Brown that there needs to be a full public inquiry into all this. If he does not agree with Gordon Brown, will he at the very least commit to releasing the flight logs and related documents—or will he wait for the House to force the Government to do that?

[The Prime Minister]

I think it is important to appreciate that there is obviously a police investigation going on, and I think it is right—I am sure the right hon. Gentleman agrees with this—that that has to go wherever the evidence takes it. We have to let that investigation run its course before deciding what next action needs to be taken.

[Ed Davey]

I think we all agree that police investigations should take priority, but that does not rule out a public inquiry, and it certainly does not rule out releasing the flight logs, which I think really should be released.

On a different note, it has been revealed that a trustee of William Blake House, a care home for adults with profound disabilities, embezzled £1 million. There are very few homes in the country that offer this sort of care, and now it faces closure. As a father of a disabled son, I can tell the Prime Minister that this situation is one of my worst nightmares, and it is one of the worst nightmares of many parents with disabled adult children. The families of the residents have put forward a rescue plan to take over William Blake House and run it themselves. It will require His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to resolve the debt issue and the Charity Commission to appoint an independent board, so will the Prime Minister meet the families and back their plan?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising this case, which is obviously a cause of considerable concern. Of course, I will make sure that the relevant meeting is put in place for all the individuals who need it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

May I thank you, Mr Speaker, and the Prime Minister for your responses to my tribute to Jim Wallace on Monday, and may I urge the whole House to read the wonderful tributes paid to Jim in the other place yesterday?

I have been thinking about how victims of Jeffrey Epstein, and the victims’ families, must feel. We are hearing more and more stories of rich, powerful men currying favour with a paedophile sex trafficker; for example, we hear of Peter Mandelson sending Government secrets to help Epstein enrich himself further. Mandelson was made ambassador to the United States, even after his links to Epstein had been extensively reported by both the Financial Times and “Channel 4 News”. Given that the Prime Minister now admits that he knew about those links before he gave such an important job to one of Epstein’s closest friends, can he tell us whether he thought at all about Epstein’s victims?

[The Prime Minister]

We looked at the material. There was a process, and the right hon. Gentleman will understand that there was then a security vetting exercise as well. That is why I started by saying that all our thoughts are with the victims of Epstein. The right hon. Gentleman is right to express anger at the material that has recently come out in relation to sensitive information in the aftermath of the ’08 crash. Yesterday, working with the Cabinet Secretary, we referred the material to the police, which has led to the criminal investigation that will follow.

[Ed Davey]

I think the victims of Jeffrey Epstein deserve far better than that; they deserve Peter Mandelson not being appointed in the first place. We do not even know the full extent of the British establishment’s involvement in Epstein’s appalling crimes, or how many British girls and young women were trafficked by him, so we need a full public inquiry, both to get justice for the victims and to protect our national security. The Polish Government think Epstein may have been spying for Vladimir Putin. Is the Prime Minister concerned that Peter Mandelson may have been leaking state secrets not just to a paedophile American financier, but also a Russian agent?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman talks of a public inquiry. Obviously, the focus now has to be on the criminal investigation, which has started. As he knows, that investigation will go wherever the evidence leads it. I have made it absolutely clear that the Government will co-operate, as he would expect, with that criminal investigation, wherever it goes.

China and Japan

Ed Davey Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

With your indulgence, Mr Speaker, I start by paying tribute to my friend Jim Wallace, one of the great Scottish Liberals. I offer our thoughts and prayers to his family and many friends. Jim devoted his life to public service, his Christian faith and the cause of liberalism. But his judgment was not always impeccable, for it was Jim who gave me my first job in politics. We will miss him.

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of the statement. I listened to the Conservative leader, whose position now seems to be to oppose trade with the world’s biggest economies—so much for global Britain. With President Trump threatening tariffs again, just because of the Prime Minister’s trip, and with Vladimir Putin still murdering civilians in Ukraine, now more than ever the United Kingdom must forge much closer alliances with nations that share our values, our belief in free trade and our commitment to mutual defence. China shares none of those.

The Prime Minister’s main focus should be on the closest possible ties with our European neighbours, our Commonwealth allies and our friends such as Japan and Korea. Once again, he has made the wrong choice. However, unlike the Conservative party, we think he was right to go and engage. But just like with President Trump, he approached President Xi from a position of weakness instead of a position of strength, promising him a super-embassy here in London in return for relatively meagre offers from China.

The Prime Minister rightly raised the case of Jimmy Lai, whose children fear for his health after five years held in captivity, so will he tell us what Xi said to give him confidence that Mr Lai is now more likely to be released? Did he also challenge Xi on the bounties on the heads of innocent Hongkongers here in the United Kingdom, or the revelation that China hacked the phones of No. 10 officials for years? In other words, did he stand up for Britain this time?

Yet again, the Prime Minister had to spend time on a foreign trip responding to revelations about the vile paedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship with Lord Mandelson. The Prime Minister has rightly said that Mandelson should resign from the other place, but since he has not, will he back a simple piece of legislation to strip him of his peerage? Surely this House could pass it tomorrow.

[The Prime Minister]

I start by offering my deep condolences on behalf of the Government in relation to Lord Wallace. He was a kind and decent man, and I know he will be sorely missed on the Liberal Democrat Benches. May he rest in peace.

Of course we need to build stronger alliances with our key partners, and that is what we have been doing, particularly with the EU. But the right hon. Gentleman is wrong: it is not a choice between doing that and engaging with China. One can do both, and that is what we are doing. Where there are opportunities, and where there are sensitive and really important disagreements, I think it is more important to have a meeting to discuss them.

The House is violently agreeing that there are issues that need to be discussed. The difference between us is that we think that having a leader-to-leader meeting to discuss those big issues is better than sticking our head in the sand, if we really want to influence them. So we can do both.

Yes, I raised the case of Jimmy Lai, and we have now spoken to his family about that discussion. Yes, I raised the case of Hong Kong. I raised a number of human rights issues, as I listed. The point is that, by being in the room and having the debate one to one, at leader-to-leader level, it was possible to raise those issues. There is frankly no point standing in this House shouting and screaming about issues if you are not prepared to get in the room to discuss them. It gets you absolutely nowhere.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

We remember how Tony Blair ignored warnings from these opposition Benches and tied himself to an unpopular American President and a disastrous foreign policy, while close allies such as Canada and France looked on in horror. With Donald Trump increasingly acting like a crime boss running a protection racket, threatening to smash up our economy unless he gets his hands on Greenland, will the Prime Minister avoid Blair’s historic mistake, take our advice this time and join Prime Minister Carney and President Macron in standing up far more strongly to President Trump?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Member is clearly not listening. I said that I will not yield on the principles and values that I uphold, and that this country upholds, in relation to the future of Greenland. But the relationship with the US matters, especially on defence, security and intelligence, and nuclear capability, and also on trade and prosperity. While he is trying to get soundbites, we must not forget that a war is raging in Europe—it is in its fourth year. The Russians are raining bombs down on Ukrainian civilians day and night, the temperature was minus 20° in Kyiv last night, and 60% of the people there are without power. People are erecting tents to keep themselves warm. We have to work with our allies, including the US, on security guarantees to ensure that we can do what we must do in relation to Ukraine. That does not mean we agree with the US on everything, and I have been absolutely clear about my position on Greenland and my position on tariffs, but it is foolhardy to think that we should rip up our relationship with the US and abandon Ukraine and so many of the other things that are important to our defence, security and intelligence.

[Ed Davey]

Of course we are not arguing that; we are arguing that the Prime Minister follows France and Canada—our close allies. Here is one thing that we can agree on: that the UK should strengthen our defensive capabilities, as the Prime Minister said earlier. But the Government are going far too slow in investing in our defensive industries. They have not even published the defence investment plan that was promised last autumn. That delay is putting critical industries, such as helicopter manufacturing based in Yeovil, at risk. Putin is waging a war in Europe, and Trump is threatening to undermine NATO. We have to rearm fast. So why will the Prime Minister not just get on with buying Great British helicopters made in the west country? [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I associate myself and my party with the Prime Minister’s comments on Iran. I encourage him to go even further on sanctions and proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Sandra is 71. She has bladder cancer. Just after Christmas, she went into her local A&E. She had to wait 31 hours on a trolley or on a plastic chair to be admitted. Last year, more than half a million people waited for over 12 hours in A&E to be admitted—more than any year in the history of the NHS. This corridor care crisis was created by the Conservatives, but it has got worse under Labour. Will the Prime Minister end this scandal by taking up our plan to end all 12-hour A&E waits this year?

[The Prime Minister]

May I first say through the right hon. Member to Sandra that that is simply not acceptable for her or anybody else? I would appreciate it if he passed that on to her directly. We have put record investment into the NHS so that we can turn this problem around, and we are turning it around.

The right hon. Member puts forward his plans for change, but he never votes for the increase in investment and the measures needed to put them into practice. You cannot change things without investing in them. You cannot call for change and vote against a Budget that puts record investment into the NHS.

[Ed Davey]

We saw what happened to the last Government when they failed to improve the NHS, and if the Prime Minister is not careful, that will happen to his Government.

Last month I asked the Prime Minister to get a grip of South East Water, which had left thousands of people in Royal Tunbridge Wells without water. Now it has happened again, not only in Tunbridge Wells but in East Grinstead, Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath and other parts of Kent and Sussex. Families, pensioners, schools, care homes and businesses have been without any water since Saturday, and the water company bosses involved now stand accused of misleading Parliament over their failures. South East Water keeps failing its customers over and over again, so will the Government immediately strip it of its licence?

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I wish you, everyone in the House and the whole country, a merry and peaceful Christmas.

I join the Prime Minister in expressing our horror at the appalling antisemitic terror attacks on Bondi Beach on the first day of Hanukkah. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of all those who have been killed and injured in this senseless act of violence, and our thoughts are with the whole Jewish community. I am sure we have all heard British Jews explain how they no longer feel safe in this country. Many of us have friends who volunteer to put on stab vests and stand guard outside their synagogue, and at Heaton Park in October, we saw why. Antisemitism is real, it is poisonous, and we must all work together to stamp it out. The Board of Deputies of British Jews has called for a comprehensive Government strategy to tackle antisemitism. Will the Prime Minister commit to that today and set out what concrete steps he is taking to make sure Jewish people are safe in Britain?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising this really important issue. It is important that we take actions that match the words we have expressed in response to these horrific attacks. The actions we have taken so far include increasing the funding for Jewish security up to £28 million. I am pleased to do that, but I am sad to do it—having to pay more money to provide security for people to be at their place of worship and to go to school is a sad thing for this country to have to do. I have ordered a review of protest and hate crime laws to stop protests breeding hatred; we are looking at new police powers to deal with repeated, targeted protests; and we have launched a review and training to tackle antisemitism in the NHS. There are other steps that we are talking to the community about taking, but all those actions have already started.

[Ed Davey]

I thank the Prime Minister for that answer, and I hope he will look at the proposal from the Board of Deputies. I think we can work across this House to end the scourge of antisemitism.

Turning to the NHS, even before today’s irresponsible strike by the resident doctors, patients were facing a terrible winter crisis. Thousands have been left on trolleys in hospital corridors for hours, with no privacy and no dignity; some have even soiled themselves because there was no response. There have even been tragic cases of people dying on those trolleys and left undiscovered for hours. The expectation is that this could get worse. Will the Prime Minister make ending this crisis his No. 1 priority, through a mass vaccination programme to stop so many people ending up in hospital with this virus and through funding the social care places that people need to leave hospital when they are ready?

[The Prime Minister]

May I say how unacceptable the conditions that some are enduring in our hospitals are? There is no excuse, and it is our No. 1 priority. On vaccinations, we have had over 17 million patients vaccinated this year. That is an increase on last year, but I want to drive that up again next year, because vaccinations make such a difference both to patients and to staff within the hospitals, and of course we will take action on social care.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I join the Prime Minister in offering our condolences to the family and friends of Lance Corporal George Hooley, who died on duty in Ukraine. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.

I congratulate Glastonbury’s Lando Norris on becoming the 11th British driver to win the Formula 1 world championship, and everyone at McLaren in Woking who powered him to the title.

President Trump’s new national security strategy is a deeply alarming document. Quite apart from the irony of President Trump accusing others of trampling on basic principles of democracy, it repeats far-right tropes of “civilizational erasure” and threatens that the US Government will cultivate resistance in Europe. No wonder Vladimir Putin has welcomed the strategy. Will the Prime Minister pick up the phone and make it clear to President Trump that any attempts to interfere with our democracy are totally unacceptable?

[The Prime Minister]

I join the right hon. Member in congratulating Lando on his incredible win. I went down to Woking on Monday to see some of the team at McLaren, and they were all wearing the pride that that brought with it.

On the question of Europe and President Trump’s comments, what I see is a strong Europe united behind Ukraine and united behind our long-standing values of freedom and democracy, and I will always stand up for those values and freedoms.

[Ed Davey]

I did not hear about standing up to President Trump. If we are going to stand up to President Trump, we do need to strengthen our ties with Europe, not just on defence, but on the economy. The truth is that this Government will not succeed unless they get our economy growing strongly again, and the best way to do that is a customs union with Europe. The Prime Minister’s chief economic adviser knows it, the Deputy Prime Minister knows it, and yesterday the Labour Chair of the Treasury Committee showed that she knows it too when she backed our Bill. Does the Prime Minister fear that if he keeps opposing a customs union, in 12 months’ time he will not be standing there?

[The Prime Minister]

We have got a close relationship with the EU through our reset earlier this year, and yes, I do want a closer relationship than the one we have at the moment—we are moving towards that. We do have manifesto commitments on issues such as the single market, the customs union and freedom of movement. But I gently point this out: having now done significant trade deals with other countries, including the US and India, which are hugely important to the JLR workforce and on pharma, it is not now sensible to unravel what is effectively the best deal with the US that any country has got.