Lord Mandelson

Debate between Emily Thornberry and Simon Hoare

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[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.