Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address Motion

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches hesitate to criticise the due diligence process by the security services and the Civil Service; it seems to have been effectively and efficiently done but disregarded by the Prime Minister’s political advisers and overridden by the Prime Minister. Presumably he thought the task of establishing and maintaining a close relationship with President Trump demanded someone like Peter Mandelson in spite of, or even because of, his flaws.

Can the Minister tell us when further files will be released? I have just looked through the first package that has been released, which is actually very thin. There is clearly an awful lot more to come out—to repeat, there is a lot to come out not just from London but from Washington, which will overlap on to this.

I am sure the whole House will be happy that the Minister has been appointed by the Prime Minister to look further into this. We will all do our best to co-operate with her in making sure that standards and procedures are improved. Can she tell us more about her work programme in her new responsibilities on ethics and standards? Will that work be primarily within government or across the parties and both Houses to make sure that, as far as possible, it gets the maximum buy-in from everyone concerned and interested in politics, and will therefore have the best chance of succeeding? Will she, for example, consider strengthening the parliamentary oversight of major public appointments, which is, after all, a common occurrence in a number of other parliamentary democracies?

How do the Government propose to strengthen further the Ministerial Code? Will they commit to regular revisions with advice from committees in both Houses?

Does the Minister recognise that the case that many of us keep making for putting the Ethics and Integrity Commission, ACOBA and a number of other bodies on a statutory basis is a matter of future-proofing? We do not know what the outcome of the next election will be but it could be extremely messy and lead to some form of coalition Government. We need to make sure that we future-proof our standards and commitments to make sure that any new Government who come in will find it easier to accept them than to override them. We have plenty of lessons from Washington of how easily things can go wrong, and we need as far as we can to prevent them similarly going wrong over here.

Can the Minister say a little about implications for the House of Lords? I note that the Conduct Committee is being charged with the rather difficult task of looking at our standards. The Leader of the House reprimanded me the other week for referring to us as a part-time House and replied that we are now effectively a full-time House. Yes, we are, but the way in which we are managed and governed still assumes that we are part-time and earn other things outside the House, and that that requires us to have a different set of concerns about private, commercial and financial interests and activities outside from those in the Commons. If we are now to be judged on the same level as the Commons as a full-time House then that is quite a radical readjustment of the way one thinks about the second Chamber.

Can I also ask a little about what happens when Peers are disbarred from the House? Will the Government consider putting before the House the idea that they should no longer be able to hold their titles? Removing them from the peerage roll would be perhaps a more important way of signalling that they no longer have a position of honour within our political system.

Of course, behind all this there are some broader issues about the financial and political culture in London, Washington, New York and Westminster. Wealth and money in politics is something we are all going to face as the Representation of the People Bill arrives in this House in a few months. We will need to look at that very carefully. I hope we may be assured that the Government will work with us to make sure that money does not override other matters in our life.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent)]

I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their questions. It is incredibly important that these matters are addressed, not least because they now drive a huge amount of my own personal work. I will come on to that.

First, I will provide an update following the Statement made in the other place last week by the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister on the release of the first tranche of documents in response to the humble Address Motion of 4 February. As the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister rightly stated:

“Jeffrey Epstein was a despicable criminal who committed … disgusting crimes that destroyed the lives of countless women and girls. What he did is … unforgivable”.


His victims must be

“our first priority. Peter Mandelson’s behaviour”—

including encouraging Jeffrey Epstein to fight his conviction for abusing a vulnerable young girl—

“was an insult to them and their suffering”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/3/26; col. 359.]

We should also never forget that every time we discuss Epstein’s horrendous behaviour, his victims relive awful experiences. These survivors must be front and centre when we debate all issues related to Jeffrey Epstein, his network and their impact.

That is why there is a cross-party consensus in both Houses for full transparency and accountability. The Government are committed to publishing all documents relevant to the humble Address and last week published the first tranche. These documents relate specifically to the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US and the discussions that subsequently led to his dismissal. Further work is ongoing to compile the rest of the information in scope. The Government recognise the urgency with which this work must be completed and will keep your Lordships updated as it progresses.

The Prime Minister has taken personal responsibility for Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador. He has acknowledged that it was a mistake and apologised, not least for believing Peter Mandelson’s lies. While the documents point to public reports of an ongoing relationship between Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein, the advice did not expose the depth and extent of their relationship, which became apparent only after the release of files by Bloomberg and then the US Department of Justice.

As the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister set out last week, there are specific documents that this Government would like to disclose but the Metropolitan Police has asked us not to do so yet to avoid prejudicing the ongoing criminal investigation into Peter Mandelson. We have agreed to that request. We will publish these documents once the Metropolitan Police has confirmed that this will no longer prejudice its investigation.

The Government have already taken steps to address weaknesses in the system and I will update your Lordships on the further steps we will take. As noble Lords will be aware, the Government have asked the Conduct Committee of your Lordships’ House to review the Code of Conduct to consider what changes are required to ensure that Members of your Lordships’ House can be removed when they have brought the peerage into disrepute. We are also exploring whether the committee can further strengthen the rules on lobbying and paid advocacy.

The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister also announced that the Prime Minister has asked the Ethics and Integrity Commission to conduct a review of the current arrangements relating to financial disclosures for Ministers and senior officials, transparency around lobbying, and the Business Appointment Rules, and I look forward to receiving its report before the Summer Recess. The Chief Secretary also confirmed that we will conduct a review of the national security vetting system to ensure that we learn the lessons from the policy and process weaknesses related to the Mandelson case.

With regard to some of the specifics that were asked, I think some of the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, will be slightly easier for me to answer, given that they are in my direct purview. On the questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, we have been clear that many more documents will follow in coming tranches. The noble Baroness was concerned about who is seeing what and when. I want to be clear that, while we are withholding some documents at the request of the Metropolitan Police, we have agreed with Simon Hoare MP, the chair of PACAC in the other place, that he is seeing all documents being withheld, so a member of His Majesty’s Opposition is seeing everything as we go through it.

Given the scale of what we are doing and the fact that we are complying and will comply with both the spirit and the letter of the humble Address, it is appropriate that we are releasing the documents in such a way that is sensible given their nature, but also that the ISC is seeing them so that it can deal with them. I assure noble Lords that all the documents will be published and that noble Lords will have the opportunity to see them all—but, given the live police investigation, we have to take this step by step.

I just want to touch on the 56 documents. I have read the paperwork related to them but I do not recognise the 56 documents. The noble Baroness asked specifically whether legal advice had been taken on the schedule. I have not seen that, but I will revert to her if such advice exists. She also questioned whether the Prime Minister had misled the Commons. He absolutely has not; his comments all the way through are in line with the paperwork being released in each tranche.

On some of the specifics raised by the noble Baroness, obviously she is aware that I cannot comment on the Committee of Privileges of the other place—that was Parliament holding a former Member to account. She asked about some of the things that we have already done, as did the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. I will touch on severance payments, which were a core theme from the noble Baroness. As the documents show, Peter Mandelson initially requested a sum that was substantially larger than the final payment—more than six times the final amount—despite the fact that he was withdrawn from Washington because he had lost the confidence of the Prime Minister. As the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister explained yesterday, the Government obviously found that to be inappropriate and unacceptable. The settlement that was agreed was to avoid even higher costs from a drawn-out legal claim at the employment tribunal, given Peter Mandelson’s employment as a civil servant rather than a Minister.

As noble Lords will know, Ministers can be dismissed without recourse to the employment tribunal—let us hope I am not experiencing that soon—but civil servants are treated differently. As can be seen from the documents, Peter Mandelson’s settlement was in line with his employment contract and standard Civil Service HR processes, avoiding the risk and high costs of drawn-out legal action and ensuring he was quickly removed from the payroll. As set out in the documents, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury approved this payment in line with standard HMT guidance on the use of severance payments.

I have already touched on the issue of vetting, but I want to spend a couple of moments responding to the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. On the question about the release of further documentation, given that this request is supported by both Houses but is about the Commons and complying with the Commons, obviously we need to lay those documents when the House is sitting. Those documents will come forward in due course, either before or after the Recess.

I look forward to discussing many details of my own work programme with Members of your Lordships’ House, not least the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. I truly believe that if we are to rebuild faith in politicians, and in what I consider to be one of the most important buildings in the country, it has to be a cross-party, cross-government and cross-Parliament project, so I will actively seek to work with all Members of your Lordships’ House on where we believe the gaps are, what we can realistically fix and how we can rebuild trust.

With regard to the Ministerial Code revisions, the noble Lord will not be surprised that, unlike his colleagues in the other place, who suggested that we may want to put it on a statutory footing, we will not be seeking to do that, but I am very aware of what he said about future-proofing standards. Many people who have been at this Dispatch Box and at Dispatch Boxes in the other place are aware that we rarely get to look at standards in the round. The last time that was done with a clear objective was in establishing the Nolan principles. I view this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make sure that we get this right. We have a Minister dedicated to it—I do not know the last time that happened—so it is about how we can ensure we use this moment to fix the things that typically get pushed to one side.

However, I agree with my noble friend the Leader of our House, Lady Smith: we are a full-time House with part-time Members and we are different from the other place. Noble Lords will be aware that I used to be a Member of the other place and am married to a Member of the other place; what he is expected to do and what I did before I was on the Front Bench are two very different sets of responsibilities. We need to make sure that we do not lose what is so special about this building and our Chamber, and some of the expertise we have because of people’s outside interests compared to the other place.

The noble Lord raised the Representation of the People Bill and the impact of money. He did not touch on the Rycroft review, which will be coming forward and will very much tie into our discussions on these issues.

I conclude by reiterating that Jeffrey Epstein was a despicable individual, and Peter Mandelson’s decision to put their relationship before his victims and the vulnerable is reprehensible. As the Prime Minister said, the victims of Epstein have lived with trauma that most of us can barely comprehend. They have had to relive it again and again, and they have had to see accountability delayed and too often denied. Peter Mandelson should never have been appointed. The Government will comply with the humble Address and I will provide further updates to your Lordships’ House in due course.