Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address

Chris Vince Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson]

This Humble Address has been worked on by Ministers and civil servants very diligently, independently and scrupulously, but that has led to some huge costs, which I am going to outline. Maybe that is a lesson that should be learned for future Humble Addresses. As the Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), said earlier in the week, £1 million has been spent by the Cabinet Office alone. A further £1 million has been spent by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and there have been further costs, including the cost of the independent King’s Counsel; the 16 to 20 civil servants entirely dedicated to this role; the time that the Intelligence and Security Committee has spent on this matter; and the many other civil servants from all the Departments involved in this. Those are huge costs.

My constituents in Putney want Government money to be spent on making their lives better, so we should always question whether this inquiry is making their lives better. When we use parliamentary powers, we have a duty to use public money responsibly and proportionately. I want full transparency, but full transparency must be smart, targeted and proportionate. A Humble Address should be a power of last resort, not a blunt instrument. Because this one was drafted on the hoof and without limits, it is taking up huge resource and time, and in doing so risks making future scrutiny harder, not easier. Most Humble Addresses ask for papers relating to a specific decision; this one asked for

“all papers relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment…including but not confined to”

nine wide-ranging categories spanning from pre-appointment to post-departure, plus all electronic comms and minutes. The breadth of that request is why the Government said:

“Given the breadth of the motion, this process will clearly take some time”—[Official Report, 23 February 2026; Vol. 781, c. 41.]

It will obviously take even more time because of the police investigation. Meanwhile, the cost is now £2 million and rising.

I reiterate the need to be able to use Humble Addresses as an Opposition tool. Maybe one day, Labour will be in opposition, and we will want to be able to use it. I absolutely agree with that, but I think that some guardrails should be put in place. I ask the Procedure Committee, alongside the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, to review how Humble Addresses are used.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an important and well-thought-out speech. She has talked about guardrails, and my constituents in Harlow will feel the same as hers about the time this process is taking and the amount of Government resources that are being used. It is really important that we get transparency, but does my hon. Friend agree that one of those guardrails should be to protect minor officials? That is what the redactions—which, of course, there has been some discussion about—are seeking to do. What should happen in this process is that those who are guilty should be punished, but those who are innocent should not be.

[Fleur Anderson]

My hon. Friend raises another good point. The rules around redactions were mentioned earlier, and we should ensure that they are consistent between inquiries. We can learn many things from this, and we should build in those things for the future.

I will make three points—only three. First, we need scope and limits. Motions should set out the subject, the time period and the type of documents sought much more rigorously than this Humble Address did. Secondly, we need a proportionality check. When we voted on this Humble Address, we were not given financial information. Before the House votes, we should have an estimate from the Government of the likely cost, staff time involved and how long compliance will take. That should be part of our measured judgment. We can weigh that against the public interest and use that information when voting. Thirdly, we should use the right tool for the job. There are Select Committees, as we well know—the Foreign Affairs Committee has been rigorously looking at this issue—as well as written questions, freedom of information requests, police investigations, as there are in this case, and evidence under oath. There are other routes to transparency, too. I am not saying we should have used those things in this case—this is the right one for this matter—but we should be prepared to check with future Humble Addresses whether those other routes should not be used.