Debate on the Address

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Wednesday 13th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)]

This King’s Speech is taking place against the most extraordinary backdrop. We knew that the carriages were booked, that the horses were ready and that the King was coming, but would we have a Prime Minister? It is such an honour to be the Leader of the Opposition who gets to respond today. May I start by congratulating the proposer and seconder of the Loyal Address on their excellent speeches? I also congratulate the Whips on finding two Back Benchers prepared to support the Prime Minister at this time.

The hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) gave a moving and funny speech. I especially appreciated her comments about black and brown faces on TV—or, as my children say, “Oh look, it’s mummy again.” She only touched lightly on the fact that she is someone who has faced one of the most challenging childhoods imaginable, yet through the strength of her character, has made it to this place. She is made of tough stuff, and that is something we need more of in this House. Anyone who can boast of chewing up and spitting out George Galloway in an election is clearly formidable.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) on successfully delivering a humorous and warm-hearted speech. As he noted, he is my constituency neighbour. He ran the London marathon last month, raising money for the St Clare hospice, which cares for his constituents and mine, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for doing that. I have become a big fan of his after listening to his speech, especially as he was so generous in his comments about the Harlow Conservatives’ successful election campaign and my councillors’ outstanding work on regenerating the town centre. If things on his side of the House are getting a bit much, he would be very welcome to cross the Floor and help the Conservatives carry on that work. I think we can say that the proposer and seconder of the Loyal Address have upheld the best traditions of the House.

I would of course like to pay tribute to His Majesty the King. His Majesty has served through a period of great personal difficulty, and throughout it he has exemplified the virtues of grace, dignity, humour, modesty and resolve in the face of adversity—virtues that were on full display during his hugely successful state visit to the United States. I am sure the whole House will have admired his skilful speech to Congress. It was a speech full of the wisdom and courage needed for our times. Of course, we would never have got to hear it if we had listened to some people in this House who called for the King’s visit to be cancelled—thank goodness no one listens to the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

As for the Prime Minister, when he was young, he called for the end of the monarchy, so I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has seen the error of his ways, because previous King Charleses took a much dimmer view of that kind of thing. I am only sorry that this new-found appreciation of the monarchy and our country’s traditions has come too late, because this is the first parliamentary Session ever without the hereditary peers. Their departure will be keenly felt and our Parliament will be poorer for it, especially when we consider some of the people Labour has been replacing them with—people who have already had the Whip removed before they have even taken their seats.

Mr Speaker, I know that the convention is for this to be a light-hearted debate, but as I have already said, this is a highly unusual moment. The Prime Minister is in office but not in power. Everyone is trying to pretend it is all right—it is not all right. In the past 48 hours, nearly 100 Labour MPs have called for the Prime Minister to resign. Four Ministers have quit. It is clear that his authority has gone and that he will not be able to deliver what little there is in this King’s Speech. This is a Government less than two years in office who have already run out of ideas and run out of road.

So how did we get here? There is a great line in the musical “Hamilton”: “Winning is easy, governing is harder”. Everything that has gone wrong in Labour’s first two years comes back to one problem: it came into office with no plan. It did not understand the difference between winning an election and governing a country. It was very easy to make promises in opposition—promises to freeze council tax, promises to take £300 off energy bills, promises to the WASPI women. Hundreds of Labour MPs took photos with them to post on their Facebook pages, websites and election leaflets, but at no point did they bother to think how they would deliver any of it.

Labour did not spend its time in opposition thinking deeply about the country’s problems. It assumed that governing in the 2020s would be like governing in the 1990s, but it is not. Britain is facing new structural problems. We have an ageing—[Interruption.] Labour Members all shout at me; I know they cannot wait to get back to their plotting, but it is quite important that we hear what is being said. We have an ageing population, a falling birth rate and a welfare bill that is spiralling out of control. We have an information revolution in the shape of AI that threatens to unravel the world of work as we know it, and the cost of energy is driving industry out of the country.

Labour was taken by surprise that we are living in a more competitive and increasingly hostile world. Its manifesto was just a set of misleading promises. It promised no new taxes on working people—fail. It promised to crack down on illegal immigration—fail. It promised to tread more lightly on people’s lives—epic fail. It made promises without knowing how anything works.

Let us look at housing. Just after Labour took office, when I was shadow Housing Secretary, I stood at this Dispatch Box and warned the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), that she had been stitched up and that the 1.5 million new homes Labour promised had been hung like a millstone around her neck. I knew the Government would not be able to meet that target, because they did not understand why more houses were not being built. Sure enough, they are already more than a third down on their target, and well behind what we delivered. Of course, in the end it was not 1.5 million homes that did for the former Deputy Prime Minister; it took just one flat in Brighton to bring her down.

It is so obvious—[Interruption.] I know Labour Members don’t want to hear it. Look at them—they are so arrogant that they want to lead our country, but they cannot even lead a coup. It is so obvious that they cannot handle being in government. They hate the responsibility, and they hate having to take tough decisions. They prefer scratching the itches that they had in opposition: giving inflation-busting pay rises to the unions, with 28% for the doctors who, after nearly two years, are still striking, and handing out more benefits to the only people who will still vote for them, because Labour Members do not understand that poverty is created not by a lack of benefits but by a failing economy.

We spent the last Session listening to Labour MPs telling us how great everything was going, and no doubt we will hear lots of grandstanding speeches this week, telling us what a fantastic job they did. How absurd, given the number of them demanding that the Prime Minister stands down. We counted, Mr Speaker, and there were 24 U-turns in that first parliamentary Session: winter fuel, family farms, grooming gangs, welfare reform, social media for under-16s, day one workers’ rights—the list goes on and on. Every single one of those U-turns had at its core a single issue: the Prime Minister’s total lack of judgment. This is a man who, faced with a crisis of vision, charisma and electoral success, sent for Gordon Brown.

Leadership is about having a vision for this country, and the courage to take difficult decisions, persuading your party that those difficult decisions will pay off in time, and taking responsibility for your mistakes. The Prime Minister has failed on every count. We have had pillars, promises, four-point plans, five-point plans, missions, with none of it achieving anything—reset after reset after reset. Even if the Prime Minister lasts long enough in office for this Loyal Address to be delivered, the Bills announced today do not remotely come close to what the country needs—[Interruption.] Labour Members are chuntering, Mr Speaker, but not a single one of them dares to intervene on me.

I welcome the Government’s ongoing support for Ukraine and their commitment to NATO. In this increasingly dangerous world, it is more important than ever that we stand with our allies in the fight against tyranny. I also commend the Government for their commitment to speed up the delivery of infrastructure such as new nuclear. Too many Governments have been frustrated in their attempts to deliver nuclear projects quickly, and we will support efforts to make the process simpler, faster and cheaper.

I also want to be generous to the Home Secretary, because I see that she is trying to do something about illegal immigration. The elephant in the room is that she almost certainly will not be Home Secretary for much longer, and sadly, no one else in the Labour party looks remotely interested in bringing down illegal immigration. The rest of the offerings in the King’s Speech make it clear that Labour Members have learned no lessons from their mistakes in government so far. All we have is a load of reannounced policies: hounding our brave veterans through the courts; legislating for digital ID—a policy they told us they had dropped; and banning trail hunting, which is just more class war that makes no one’s life better. Scrapping NHS England is something the Prime Minister announced 14 months ago—but I suppose the Health Secretary has been a bit distracted lately, hasn’t he? [Interruption.] He’s chuntering now. Why don’t you just do your job? There is no point in him giving me dirty looks; we all know what he has been up to.

Even worse is what is not in the Gracious Speech. There is no defence readiness Bill, because apparently it is not ready. Where are the plans for welfare reform? There are none, because Labour MPs have blocked them. Where is the plan to make savings? There isn’t one, because Labour Members do not know how to make savings; they only know how to spend money—other people’s money. Where is the plan to support businesses? There isn’t one, because they do not understand that it is business that creates growth, not Government. They have no answers on what really matters: the problems that must be solved to get Britain working again.

I do feel very sorry for Labour Back Benchers. [Interruption.] It’s true—I do feel sorry for Labour Back Benchers. They arrived here not that long ago with such high hopes. Some of them, in fact, were so talented that they were made Ministers before ever speaking a word in Parliament. So talented! Although one of them has just resigned; I must not forget that. We have watched their growing horror, day after day and week after week, as this hope descended into total chaos; the dread as they are sent out yet again to defend the indefensible; the injustice of feeling like pariahs in their own constituencies—banned from pubs and banned from hairdressers, which is presumably why all the women on the Government Front Bench have the same hairstyle. We have seen the realisation that their legacy is just going to be—[Interruption.] They can complain as much as they like. I was not expecting this to be comfortable for them. They are the ones who are trying to unseat their Prime Minister; they should face that. We have seen the realisation that their legacy is just going to be breakfast clubs and Peter Mandelson.

Labour MPs have been treated as disposable by their leadership: sacked for backing the two-child benefit cap, sacked for opposing welfare changes, sacked for supporting farmers. The Prime Minister then U-turned on all of them. It must be tough when you take a principled stand and have the Whip removed, only for the Government to confirm six months later that they agreed with you all along. It is no wonder that nearly 100 Labour MPs have now called for the Prime Minister to go. I know that there are another 100 who claim to be supporting him, although some of them did not even know that their name was on that list. When you can only get a quarter of your MPs to publicly back you, the game is up, so the starting gun for the Labour leadership contest has been fired.

Let’s have a look at the runners and riders. We have the former Deputy Prime Minister—she is not here—who has giving up vaping but still has not paid her taxes. We have the Health Secretary, who accidentally sent his takeover plans to No. 10—almost as incompetent as leaving them on the photocopier. And we have the Mayor of Manchester, a self-proclaimed winner who has twice failed to win the Labour leadership, including against the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). As one Labour MP said about all the candidates in this race, and I quote:

“We have to face up to the fact that every single one of them is”—

I apologise, Mr Speaker—

“f****** useless.”

I do feel sorry for the poor Labour MPs who will now be subjected to months of peacocking by leadership candidates while the country is not being governed. I have some advice for whichever of them eventually takes over. Getting to No. 10 is not an award for being in a game show. This is not “Strictly Come Dancing” and, despite appearances, it is not “The Traitors” either. If you are a Housing Secretary who cannot work out her housing taxes, if you are a Health Secretary who can only cut waiting lists by deleting names from them, if you are Gordon Brown’s former Chief Secretary to the Treasury and you think the bond markets are a hoax, I can assure you that being Prime Minister is going to be a lot tougher. Too many have failed because they thought that winning an election or a leadership contest was the success, but it is not. The work does not end when you get the job; that is when it starts.

It is absolutely preposterous that the Government are here laying out a programme as their Ministers are resigning and a large proportion of the Labour party is saying that the Prime Minister needs to go. The whole thing is totally illogical. Either Labour MPs agree with this agenda—in which case, why are they trying to get rid of the Prime Minister? Or they do not agree with this agenda—in which case, what on earth are we all doing here?

It is time to be brutally honest. The country is angry with the entire political class—all of us here. They are not happy with how we have been doing politics. It is time to get serious.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady seeks to lecture us on why everyone is so fed up with the political class, but she is using this opportunity not to lay out what the Conservatives would do, but to insult everyone on the Labour Benches. Surely that is not the way to proceed.

[Mrs Badenoch]

Oh, I am not done yet; there is plenty more to come.

The right hon. Lady says that she is getting a lecture, and she is. We are all getting a lecture, because we are legislators of the United Kingdom. We were sent here to fix difficult things, not to focus on our personal hobby horses, ranging from the petty to the puerile.

Labour Members do not need to be scared of the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)—I am not. He is not the cause of Britain’s problems—[Hon. Members: “You are!”] Labour Members are still delusional. I am sorry to puncture the bubble, but I am not here to pretend that what is happening is not happening. They can all pretend and live in la-la land, but I am going to speak the truth to them. The hon. Member for Clacton is not the cause of Britain’s problems; he is a symptom of the failure of the political class to focus on what matters. If you fix the problems that people care about, he goes away.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I changed my party and I won a general election. She has changed her party, because when I became leader of mine, the Conservative party was three times the size it is now. She has changed it, and it is now even smaller than when she started as leader, because half of them are up there on the Reform Benches. The stunt the Conservatives played yesterday was because they do not like what we are delivering: more rights at work, more security for renters, and half a million children lifted out of poverty. That is our mandate, that is our mission, and nothing is going to hold us back.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

It was 18 months ago, I remember, that my late friend Terry Etherton was sitting up in the Gallery beaming down at the Prime Minister because he had just announced the Government scheme to give compensation to those who had been wrongly sacked from the armed forces for simply being gay. I have a constituent who lost his job at MI6 in the 1980s for his sexuality, and he has no compensation. Those in the security services also put their life on the line for their country; it is just not fair. Will the Prime Minister find the time to sit down with my constituent and me, so that together we can work out how we can extend Terry’s scheme, so that those who were in the security services can also get justice?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her dedicated work on this. I am very proud of the work that we have done to recognise LGBT veterans. On top of that, people in our security services are some of the bravest and most professional who serve our country. That some of them lost their job because of their sexuality is a historical wrong, and I confirm today that the Security Minister is assessing this closely. I will make sure that my right hon. Friend is updated and has the meeting that she has asked for.

Security Vetting

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 20th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

The truth is that my Committee did ask. We asked on the record, and we got a partial truth that could hardly be the whole truth. We are on record as asking the very questions that hecklers on the Opposition Benches say should have been asked. The answers are there, on the record; people can see what we got when we did ask.

A month before Mandelson’s appointment was announced, the then Cabinet Secretary advised that the necessary security clearance should be acquired before a political appointment was confirmed. That does not seem to have been the usual practice. I am glad that it has changed, because the process was clearly abused. Someone—probably Peter Mandelson himself—leaked his appointment as US ambassador to the press, which effectively bounced the Government into confirming it. When the confirmation of his appointment came forward, neither the offer letter to Peter Mandelson nor the Government’s press release made it clear that the appointment was subject to vetting. Does it not look as though, for certain members of the Prime Minister’s team, getting Peter Mandelson the job was a priority that overrode everything else, and security considerations were very much second order?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her question. Her Committee did ask relevant questions, and that is why I have indicated that it was unforgivable that the Foreign Secretary was asked to sign a statement in response to those very questions without being told about the recommendation. The questions were asked; the Foreign Secretary was advised and asked to sign a statement without being told the relevant information. That is unforgivable. As for the appointment before developed vetting, I have changed that process now, so that it can never happen again; my right hon. Friend the Committee Chair heard me quote the evidence of the former Cabinet Secretary and the former permanent secretary in relation to that.

Let me deal with my right hon. Friend’s third point, which is that somehow Downing Street’s wish to appoint Peter Mandelson overrode security concerns—[Interruption.] No, Mr Speaker, let me be very clear: if I had been told that Peter Mandelson, or anybody else, had failed or not been given clearance on security vetting, I would not have appointed them. A deliberate decision was taken to withhold that material from me. This was not a lack of asking; this was not an oversight—[Interruption.] It was a decision taken not to share that information on repeated occasions.

Middle East

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

The Foreign Affairs Committee has just come from a meeting with some of the Gulf ambassadors, who are genuinely grateful for the help that Britain has given in defending their countries, and want to say how grateful they are that the Prime Minister visited the Gulf, in an act of true solidarity. But when people heard the Israeli Defence Minister say that his war aims in Lebanon would follow “the model in Gaza”, our blood ran cold. Could the Prime Minister tell the House what role the United Kingdom can play to ensure a ceasefire in Lebanon, and that Israel is prevented from taking over Lebanon south of the Litani river?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising the important question of Lebanon; I want to be really clear in relation to that. Lebanon should be included in the ceasefire, and we are using every opportunity we can to make that argument. I am pleased that there is some diplomacy at the moment, but those attacks should stop and it is important that we are very clear about that.

Middle East

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Although the attack on Iran by the US and Israel was ill-advised, ill-judged and illegal, it is absolutely no excuse for the Iranians to recklessly bombard its Gulf neighbours. Is the Prime Minister in a position to give us more details on what we are doing with our Ukrainian friends to support the collective self-defence of Arab nations against the Iranian Shahed drones that are causing so much damage in Ukraine and now in the Gulf?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that important question. Ukraine, sadly, has more expertise than anyone in dealing with drones. That is why we are putting Ukraine’s expertise and our expertise together and using it to help our allies in the region as they struggle with drones as we speak.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. and gallant Friend is absolutely right. Our support for Ukraine is unwavering, and yesterday I chaired the call of the coalition of the willing and announced new sanctions to weaken Putin’s war machine. The Greens, by contrast, want to pull out of NATO and negotiate with Putin on our nuclear deterrent, and Reform is still parroting Kremlin talking points after its leader in Wales was jailed for taking Russian bribes. Both of them are weak on NATO and soft on Putin.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Points of order come after urgent questions and statements. We are not going to change the policy of the House.

Standards in Public Life

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow—

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

We cannot have points of order; we are just beginning the statement. [Interruption.] Those are the rules of the House. I am not going change them especially for you.

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that the public had their say at the last general election, and they elected a landslide Labour majority, with the Conservatives suffering an historic defeat. In my view, one of the reasons the public booted that lot out of office was their repeated failings in standards and ethics, from the personal protective equipment contracts for dodgy friends to lying to Parliament and the sexual misconduct scandals. The hon. Gentleman asks me why it is that Ministers who have breached the code have resigned. It is because we fixed the system. The reason we have an independent ethics adviser who cannot be directed by the Prime Minister, as was the case under the previous Government, is that they are independent. When Ministers have been found to have broken the code, they have gone, because that should be the consequence for doing so.

The hon. Gentleman asks me what the Prime Minister knew at the time of Peter Mandelson’s appointment, but the Prime Minister has already answered that question repeatedly. The information that has come out since his appointment has made it clear that Peter lied to the Prime Minister about the state of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Had the Prime Minister known at the point of appointment what we all know now, with the privilege of hindsight, he would not have appointed him in the first place.

The hon. Gentleman asks me a number of questions about the process flowing from the Humble Address. As I have already informed the House, the Government are working with the leadership of the Intelligence and Security Committee to ensure that we can comply with the Humble Address and co-operate with transparency to release the documents as we have said we will, in compliance with the Met police investigation and other constraints that are currently being managed. We will ensure that the Intelligence and Security Committee is given all the available support it needs to be able to service the House effectively in line with the Humble Address.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his statement and for telling us that relevant direct ministerial appointments, including politically appointed diplomatic roles where the appointee will have access to highly classified material, will have to pass the requisite national security vetting process before such appointments are announced or confirmed. [Interruption.] That may sound surprising to Conservative Members, who probably did not hear what my right hon. Friend said as they were barracking him so much, but that is to be—[Interruption.] That is to be welcomed.

The Foreign Affairs Committee believed that Peter Mandelson should have come before our Committee before he was sent to Washington, and we were right. We should not have been prevented from seeing him. In the past, political appointees to ambassadorial roles have nearly always appeared before the Committee, but only at the Foreign Office’s discretion. We do not want it to have that discretion any more. We would like it written into the rules that before someone is appointed to an ambassadorial role or to be chair of the British Council or director of the BBC World Service, those political appointees must appear in public before the Foreign Affairs Committee and answer our questions.

[Darren Jones]

I thank the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee for her question. She raises important points about the process for appointing ambassadors and the delay between announcement, appointment and the host country accepting their appointment to the role. That is why we have made it clear today that the security vetting process will now have to be concluded before announcement and confirmation.

My right hon. Friend asks me about the role of pre-appointment hearings. I know that the permanent secretary of the Foreign Office has already informed her Committee that it is entitled to invite ambassadors to appear before the Committee to answer questions. Of course, we continue to keep all other pre-appointment hearings under review.

Lord Mandelson

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I would like to start by acknowledging the victims of Epstein and the powerful men around him: vulnerable, abused women and girls who were sold and traded. Since the publication of Epstein’s papers, we have learnt so much more. An email from Jeffrey Epstein to Peter Mandelson, dated 28 October 2009, reads as follows:

“new york? brown? cuban-american…have you made any decisions?”

A few minutes later, Peter Mandelson responds:

“why are you awake. these questions are all related – desp for CuAm but can only get to NY at a time when people feel G”

—that may be Gordon Brown—

“won’t have some sort of breakdown…still working on it, therefore”.

There are so many questions to be asked about that. One of the suggested answers might be that this is not just about young women.

[Dr Mullan]

Does the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee regret describing the appointment of Peter Mandelson as “inspired”, and did she know of his ongoing relationship with Epstein prior to his appointment?

[Emily Thornberry]

I will come to that, because it is important, and it is important to put it in context.

Since then, we have seen not just that, but treachery of the worst kind. The question is: how did we get here? How did a man like that become Britain’s ambassador to the United States? We must begin by taking ourselves back to the time when Donald Trump was elected, and consider how challenging and difficult it was to know who was the best choice for ambassador. There was a choice: we could have continued with the ambassador who was already there, Karen Pierce. She had been invited to Mar-a-Lago many times; she had connections with Donald Trump’s circle; she was an older woman; she was a powerhouse; she is great at making friends; she wears mad shoes. She is one of a generation of senior, older women, too many of whom are no longer in the Foreign Office and have been replaced by boys. At the time when Labour was elected, all the other six members of the G7 were represented by women, as was the United Nations. Now there is only one.

We had a choice between deciding to ask Karen Pierce to continue to be the ambassador and going in another direction. The question was: what was the right way to do it? We chose Mandelson because it was seen as an imaginative response, and I welcomed it as an imaginative response. Personally, I would have continued with Karen Pierce, who is a woman I know, trust and admire, but if a different direction was to be taken, it was a choice that was imaginative and one that made some sense in the context of Donald Trump becoming President.

On 3 November, when we discovered more information about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein, we asked Chris Wormald, the Cabinet Secretary, and Oliver Robbins, the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, to come before the Foreign Affairs Committee to give evidence, because we were concerned about how this had happened. Clearly, so much background information about Peter Mandelson was out there but did not seem to have been considered properly before a decision was made, so we asked how it had happened. We were told that the first thing that had happened was due diligence. Due diligence meant fast-stream civil servants having the opportunity to search open sources, so they go to Google and they look, and that threw up reference to Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

I said to Sir Chris Wormald—this is question 313 in the transcript—

“It is really important to be clear about this—I am sorry to keep banging on about it—but was the Prime Minister told that Peter Mandelson had stayed at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in 2009, when Epstein was in prison for soliciting an under-age girl?”

Perhaps this is because of my background as a lawyer, but there seems to me to be a difference here. To stand by a friend who has been accused of something shows one sort of character—it shows a certain strength—but to continue to be friends with them after they have been convicted, and to stay at their house, shows a completely different type of character. That, to me, was a nub point, so I wanted to know whether the Prime Minister had been given that information, which was publicly available—although, I have to say that it had passed me by; I knew of the friendship, but that is different from knowing that the friendship had continued post-conviction. I think it is really important to establish that difference, and that was something we asked about in the Committee hearing. The answer was, “I am not going to tell you the contents of the due diligence report.”

[Alicia Kearns]

I understand that the right hon. Lady is saying that the information that Peter Mandelson had maintained a relationship with a then convicted paedophile passed her by. However, she does have an entire committee of Clerks who will have advised her. She also says that she said that this was an imaginative appointment. I am afraid she actually said that it was an “inspired appointment”. I know, because I spoke out against the appointment. Will she please tell me whether her Clerks at any point shared with her concerns about the background of Epstein and his relationship with Mandelson, and whether she will therefore now say that she regrets calling it an “inspired appointment”?

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

Anyone who either made the decision or said that it was a good thing must regret it, of course, but we must remember that the appointment was made on the 18th and I made those comments two days later. During those two days—in the run-up to Christmas—the Clerks were not the people I referred to first. Work was done thereafter, and the reason for that work was that we wanted Mandelson, once his appointment had been announced, to come before the Committee to be questioned. We felt that it was very important that he should appear before the Committee in an open hearing, where we could ask him questions, such as the ones that I put, and a record could be made.

[Dr Mullan]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Emily Thornberry]

May I just finish?

For instance, I said this:

“if you had come before us, we would have looked on the internet—we would have googled—and we would have found that Channel 4 had done a documentary, ‘The Prince & the Paedophile’, that clearly highlighted Mandelson’s links with Epstein. We would have given consideration to the Financial Times and Guardian reports in June 2023 that referenced the JP Morgan internal investigation. In those reports, what was most damning of all was that Epstein was sentenced in 2008 to 18 months’ imprisonment for soliciting an underage girl, and Peter Mandelson goes to stay in his townhouse in Manhattan in 2009. At that time, Peter Mandelson was the Business Secretary. So we have the Business Secretary staying in the townhouse in Manhattan of someone convicted of paedophilia.”

We would have asked those questions, and whatever answers would have been given, whether they were honest or not, would have been out there in public.

The problem, I think, was that a decision was made in the haste of Donald Trump’s election to go for an “imaginative”, “inspiring” or “alternative” person to go to the United States, and not enough time was spent on it. The decision was therefore made to appoint, subject to—

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Emily Thornberry]

No, please, let me finish. [Interruption.] I want to finish what I am saying.

[Mr Speaker]

Order, please.

[Emily Thornberry]

So the decision to appoint was made. There was supposed to be some due diligence before that happens.

I can help the House by explaining what that “due diligence” meant. As I have said, that was looked at by civil servants on the fast stream. We asked, “When you did the due diligence, what detail of the results was given to the Prime Minister?” I said that it was very important that we were given information about what the Prime Minister had been told at that point, because the friendship with Epstein was generally known about, but the ongoing friendship and the specific point about him having stayed, while a member of Cabinet, in Epstein’s New York townhouse was, to me, a very different matter. I wanted to know whether the Prime Minister had been let down by not being told that particular point. In the end, we cannot expect the Prime Minister to do all the due diligence himself—he does have a country to run. He relies on those around him to give him proper advice, so that he can then work on that advice and make decisions on that basis.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Emily Thornberry]

Seven Members are seeking to intervene. If I may, I will perhaps take two interventions.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

This whole debate centres on the judgment, and trust in the judgment, of our Prime Minister of this United Kingdom when he decided to appoint the monster—when he decided to appoint Mandelson as our ambassador to the US. The right hon. Lady has just confirmed that the Cabinet Secretary refused to answer questions about vetting, yet the Prime Minister is asking us to trust the Cabinet Secretary to make decisions about the release of documents and information. Does she agree that it must be right that the Intelligence and Security Committee makes those decisions, as opposed to a Cabinet Secretary in whom we no longer can have trust?

[Emily Thornberry]

Again, for the record, I asked the Cabinet Secretary why he was not prepared to give that information to us, and he gave two reasons: first, because he felt that he had a duty of care to the candidate; and secondly, because he was not going to put information about his advice to No. 10 into the public realm.

I think that the proposed amendment makes a great deal of sense. We can see a lot of bustling around going on in the background of the Chamber at the moment, so let us see what comes from that. I will take one other intervention.

[Dr Johnson]

The right hon. Lady is making strong and clear points about the relationship between Epstein and Mandelson. The Prime Minister was clear at Prime Minister’s questions that he knew the relationship was ongoing, and he knew that at the time he appointed him. What sort of ongoing relationship with a non-related convicted paedophile is acceptable to the right hon. Lady for someone who is meant to represent our country on the world stage?

[Emily Thornberry]

I think I have made it clear that, for me, there is a difference between being a friend of someone who is accused of something and then putting distance between oneself and that person if they are then convicted. I think a decision should be made at that point. That goes to a matter of conscience and the right way to proceed. That is my view.

[Dr Mullan]

rose—

[Emily Thornberry]

I will not take any more interventions.

I have explained what our Committee was told about due diligence and how that happened. Normally what would then happen is that an interview would be done with a panel, and questions that arose during due diligence would be put to the candidate during that interview. But that did not happen in this case because it was a political appointment. So if anyone had any concerns about Peter Mandelson and his background, or any of the things that people are now concerned about, those would not have been formally put to him during any form of interview process where minutes were taken and we could now look at what those conversations were. That, I think, is a really important piece of information to put before this House so that people understand how this happened.

We have due diligence—fast-streamers looking at the internet—nothing being put to Peter Mandelson, and then the decision being announced. The decision was announced in the middle of December, as we have heard, and then they wanted to do it really quickly, presumably so that he could be at the President’s swearing-in. Also, once the announcement was made, Karen Pierce would have lost power and influence, because it would have been known that she was not continuing in post, so it was important to move as soon as possible.

The next stage was vetting, which is done by the Foreign Office. The question I have for Ministers is this: given that the announcement had been made and that speed was needed, was pressure put on the Foreign Office to get through the vetting quickly? Was there, to coin a phrase, a need to “get on with it”? That is an important question to ask and one that we need an answer to, but we must also be realistic. Once it was known that Peter Mandelson was going to be the ambassador for Britain, it would have taken huge bravery and introduced potential risk to withdraw him from the appointment if anything had come up at the vetting stage.

[Mike Martin]

As Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, does the right hon. Lady know what the then Foreign Secretary—the Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy)—knew at that time? Does she think that that should also be brought to the attention of the House in this release of documents?

[Emily Thornberry]

The point is that the due diligence and vetting are done by civil servants and are not supposed to involve politicians, and the decision was made in No. 10. That is how it works, as I understand it, so the views of the then Foreign Secretary may not be directly relevant.

[Mike Martin]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way once again; she is being very generous. What is the point in civil servants doing due diligence if that information is not given to politicians when they make the decisions?

[Emily Thornberry]

No, it is given to those who are making the decisions—as I understand it. The due diligence is done by the Cabinet Office. It does due diligence on a number of candidates, and then the decision is made as to which candidate will be put forward. Then it is announced. Then the vetting is done by the Foreign Office, and that information is handed back. I believe that that is the process. I think it is important, for clarity, that people know the process, because if we are about to get a large amount of information, it is important to understand how it worked.

[Simon Hoare]

The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee is right in that respect. I will just quote from a letter from the Cabinet Secretary to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which I chair:

“Due diligence is generally carried out by the appointing minister’s department (in this case it was carried out by the Cabinet Office on behalf of No 10) so is not usually shared with other departments, and was not in this case.”

That answers the question of whether the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was involved; this was purely the Cabinet Office and No. 10, so the right hon. Lady is right. I just thought that that quote might help her in her argument.

[Emily Thornberry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. Yes, I have read the letter—I am afraid I did not have it at my fingertips—but I think it is important to put all this information before the House.

The next question is, what does “vetting” mean? I appreciate that there are other processes that we cannot go into here, and it would not be appropriate to do so, but I hope it will be of help to the House to share another answer from the Foreign Affairs Committee session. In question 269, I said:

“The foundation of it seems to be that they have a form to fill in, you take it in good faith that they are filling that in correctly, and then you check what it is that they have said, so if they have omitted anything, no one is looking outside what is on the form.”

Sir Oliver Robbins then said:

“That is broadly correct, yes.”

That is vetting.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I will touch on vetting in my contribution later, but as someone who was vetted by the Foreign Office many years ago, I would like to seek clarity as to whether Peter Mandelson went through the full vetting process that a normal member of the diplomatic service would undergo ahead of taking up such a post, or did he simply undergo what is known in political terms—in Chief Whip terms—as the “pet process” undertaken by the Cabinet Office, because full vetting takes a long time?

[Emily Thornberry]

I understand what the right hon. Lady is saying. Obviously, I do not know. All I can do to help the House is point out that when it was announced in mid-December that Lord Mandelson would be the ambassador, pressure was being applied to make sure that we were all clear that he was going to be the ambassador in time for the swearing in of the President a month later. The Committee did everything that we could to try to get to the bottom of how many questions were asked and what the questions were, and we all did our utmost to try to get to the truth of this. If Members read the transcript, they will see that we were not “mandarined”.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s explanation of the process, because many people outside it wonder what information is shared and what process is gone through. It is hard to believe that the information held by the Department of Justice in the US was not shared with our security services or disclosed in the process, given the security clearance that is required for a post of this nature. On that basis, and to eliminate any accusations of cover-up or conspiracy, is it not the right path to have the Intelligence and Security Committee look at this and thin the evidence that comes forward?

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

Throughout my contribution, I have tried to explain the attempts that the Foreign Affairs Committee has made. The most important thing is that we asked several times. We asked straightaway in January, and we asked in February. We asked many times to have Lord Mandelson in front of the Committee, because we would have been able to ask those questions.

We would perhaps not be in the mess that we are in now if the Foreign Affairs Committee had been able to do its job properly, and we expect that the next political appointment, if there is one, will be put before the Committee so that we are able to ask questions in a way that is not necessary for appointments of people within the Foreign Office. If the Government want to appoint someone who is a politician, politicians should ask questions on the record, so that we know what we are getting, what contribution they can make and the risks that are being taken. We would have asked about Epstein and loans, and the answers—truthful or not—would have been on the record.

China and Japan

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement, and I am pleased to see that his trip went so well. This morning, I was in touch with the Scotch Whisky Association, which wants me to convey its congratulations to the Prime Minister on securing reduced tariffs on exports to China. There is, of course, more work needed, however—a Prime Minister’s job is never done. The biggest overseas market for whisky is, of course, the US, where the tariff is still too high. Will the Prime Minister confirm that this will not be the end of his support for the Scotch whisky industry and that he will continue to be an advocate for it?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, I can confirm that we are continuing to work with the US. Of course, the India deal we secured will also have an impact on whisky tariffs.

US Department of Justice Release of Files

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

The person who has to take responsibility for their failings is Peter Mandelson. The shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster knows that the process for political appointments, whether to ambassadorships or otherwise, was one set up under the previous Conservative Government. It was a process that we inherited and have since updated. The Prime Minister has been very clear that the declarations of interest put forward by Peter Mandelson were not wholly truthful. When it became clear from the release of information that that had not been the case, the Prime Minister moved swiftly to remove Peter Mandelson as the ambassador to the United States.

On the first point that the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster made, in relation to an investigation requested by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, I can confirm to the House that his statement was incorrect. The former Prime Minister did ask the Cabinet Secretary to investigate in order to look for any particular documents that related, as he said, to the sale of RBS assets to JP Morgan. That investigation was undertaken. The Cabinet Secretary did respond to the former Prime Minister to confirm that no documents in relation to those questions were held by the Government. Evidently, now that more documents have become available to the public and to the Government, further investigations are now taking place.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

The files seem to show that Peter Mandelson was given £50,000 by a notorious paedophile and that a few years later he sent on market-sensitive information to Epstein, who worked for JP Morgan, about market bail-outs. He told him about the Prime Minister’s resignation, said that they should “mildly threaten” the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and then told him about matters of national security. Surely this is a matter not of whether Peter Mandelson should be in the House of Lords, but of whether the police should be involved.