Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address

Darren Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister (Darren Jones)]

I thank Members from across the House for their contributions this afternoon and for sharing the condolences expressed by the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), on the news that we learned during the debate that Sir Alex Younger, the former director general of MI6, had passed.

As I have said to the House before, while it is right for Members to discuss process and how the Government have responded to the Humble Address, we must not neglect to remember the women and girls who are at the very heart of this matter. Their suffering cannot be forgotten in this pursuit of justice—a pursuit that has been denied to them for too long. On that point, I want to start by paying particular thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) for her powerful speech this afternoon and to take this opportunity to thank her for the work she carried out so diligently as part of this Government as the Minister for Victims.

The accounts that my hon. Friend has shared with this House this afternoon from victims such as Lisa are harrowing and should remind us of the anger and suffering that they rightly continue to feel each time we have one of these debates. But my hon. Friend’s speech has made me think that just reading the words on this page alone feels insufficient in the context of the cultural challenges that she raised, and with your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to take a moment to take this opportunity to ask myself questions about my relationship with Peter Mandelson.

Did I consciously ignore the stories that followed Peter Mandelson, or indeed know about many of them, from many, many years ago? I do not think that I did. Did I ever ignore warnings that were put to me about Peter Mandelson? I did not receive any, to do so. But as I reflected on my hon. Friend’s speech, it made me think: did I at best subconsciously treat Peter Mandelson differently because I believed him to have influence and power within the Labour party? I think the answer to that question is yes, I did. Have I benefited from that relationship in the time I have been an elected politician? I think in part the answer to that question is yes, I did. For that I would like to apologise to the House, to the victims, to Lisa, and commit to then doing something about it.

In the first instance, I hear my hon. Friend’s request for a meeting with the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. I know that there is a request with No. 10 for the Prime Minister to do so, but if she thinks it appropriate, I make myself available for that meeting to discuss the issues that she has raised. I know that she will continue to be a strong advocate from the Back Benches for the action this Government are taking to halve violence against women and girls, as well as to pursue the duty of candour on which I know she worked so hard, and I look forward to continuing my work with her on these important issues.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

The Minister has shown once again what a decent man he is, and he is doing a very difficult job in defence of somebody who knew a lot more than he did. He was not chief of staff at the time that the Mandelson appointment was being carried out. On page 8 of the first bundle, we have the note from the private secretary to the Prime Minister, which says:

“We have sought a due diligence review…and your Chief of Staff”—

Morgan McSweeney at the time—

“has discussed Peter’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein which we will go through with you, but your Director of Communications is satisfied with his responses to questions about contact.”

However, we also know from earlier in the bundle that the Prime Minister specifically knew that Mandelson had stayed in Epstein’s flat while Epstein was in in jail for the abuse of an under-age girl. The Prime Minister knew all that at the time. What is the purpose of having a box at the end marked for the Prime Minister’s comments on the alternatives he has been given when in fact, as we now know and as has been clearly explained by the Paymaster General, there has been no redaction—the Prime Minister did not comment? Why did the Prime Minister withhold any remarks on this highly contentious matter? Where did he comment? Where did he give his decision? He certainly did not do it in the place that he was supposed to do it.

[Darren Jones]

In relation to the first part of the right hon. Gentleman’s question, he will know, because I have confirmed it to the House at the Dispatch Box previously, that questions were put by the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff to Peter Mandelson following the due diligence report to seek further information about the stories reported in the newspaper. He will also know that Peter Mandelson replied to those questions, and that information was then considered by those in No. 10.

As I have confirmed to the House, that document—the question and its answers—is one of the documents being held by the Metropolitan police. I have been advised repeatedly that I am not permitted to disclose what I have seen in that document on the Floor of the House, so I am afraid it will have to be one of those questions that remains until such a time as the Metropolitan police publishes its documentation. In relation to the second part of the right hon. Gentleman’s question, I refer him to the Paymaster General’s answer earlier today. That is the answer to that question.

This is my 11th update to the House on this matter, and I am grateful for the opportunity to answer Members’ questions. I will speak to a number of issues first, before turning to some specific questions from Members and setting out what the Government intend to do next.

Since the Humble Address motion was passed on 4 February, the House will know that a huge disclosure exercise has been undertaken by Government officials. The motion called for the disclosure of documents in respect of the appointment and dismissal of Peter Mandelson as His Majesty’s ambassador to Washington, alongside relevant communications. The publication of documents on 11 March, followed by the second tranche on Monday, has done that, in the Government’s view. I hope the Government have provided the House with the reassurance it needs that, with the exception of the small number of documents withheld at the request of the Metropolitan police, which we intend to publish when we are allowed to do so, the Government have discharged their duties to the House in relation to the Humble Address.

[Sir John Hayes]

In those terms, at what point did the Metropolitan police ask for the vetting summary? Clearly it is now a known fact that there was an assumption that that vetting summary, but not the granular detail, was likely to be published, albeit in a redacted form, having been through the normal process.

[Darren Jones]

If the right hon. Member will forgive me, I have noted that question from earlier in the debate, and I will come to it in a grouping shortly.

I note the comments and questions today from Members on the process that officials have led to support the Government in responding to the Humble Address. As I have said each time I have been at the Dispatch Box, the Government have taken their obligations to comply with the Humble Address seriously and, in their view, have done so in full.

I hear the calls of some Members for the Government to provide further detail on Peter Mandelson’s vetting. As I told the House on Monday, we have shared the vetting summary and recommendation with the Intelligence and Security Committee. However, the vetting inputs collected as part of those investigations would never be published, because if the Government did so, people would feel unable to answer those questions honestly and frankly in any UK Security Vetting investigation in the future—a point that was made by the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin), who has been through that process. That would undermine our national security—not just in this instance, but the very basis of the national security system itself. It would have far-reaching impacts that no responsible Government rightly should entertain.

On that basis, I welcome the comments from the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Lord Beamish, on Monday night. He said that he

“agrees with the Government that the larger vetting documents shouldn’t be released to the Committee”

because of the potential impact on the vetting system. The former National Security Adviser, Lord Sedwill, wrote in a letter published in The Times today that

“the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has seen a summary of the issues that vetting inevitably raised. That should be sufficient for Parliament to judge the Prime Minister’s handling of this episode. Any Humble Address requiring disclosure of Lord Mandelson’s detailed submissions or vetting file would be a serious mistake.”

In the other place yesterday, Baroness Manningham-Buller, the former director general of MI5, said:

“I know that security vetting is very detailed—I have been subjected to it many times myself. It goes to your school, education, employers and friends, and people speak frankly. If for one moment they felt it was going to be published, security vetting designed to protect the most secret information would be of little value. Whatever else we do, we must hold on to that. However tempting it would be, for whatever reason, to know the full contents, they must not be revealed. I am talking not about this case but about a general principle.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 June 2026; Vol. 856, c. 764.]

I hear the arguments put by right hon. and hon. Members in the House today, but I do say that not just the Government’s position, but the advice from the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, a former National Security Adviser and a former director general of MI5 should be taken seriously.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I have been here through the debate and not one person has asked for all that information to be published—not one. People have been asking for the summary at the end, the outcome. Did it say “Red—he should not be granted clearance”?

[Darren Jones]

I have said repeatedly that the summary has been given to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I think the hon. Lady may be confusing the summary and the recommendation from the interview information that was collected between the UKSV official and Peter Mandelson. This is important because, as the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells said, when someone goes into an interview with a UKSV specialist and they say, “You must tell me everything, and it will go no further,” if that were to be handed over to a politician—even a politician on the Intelligence and Security Committee—it would undermine the very basis of that work.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

We need to be very clear about this: the arguments the Minister is making are right, but as the hon. Lady points out, they are not a response to the arguments we are making. The argument that has been made to him by the Intelligence and Security Committee, as he knows, is that there is no harm to be found in the disclosure of the conclusions of the vetting process. We accept absolutely that the contributing material that led to those conclusions should not be disclosed. I need him to be very clear that it is our view that the conclusions could be disclosed, and there is no harm to be done to national security, which there would be if the contributing material were disclosed, by the disclosure of the conclusions. Will he confirm that?

[Darren Jones]

Again, it is important to distinguish between the notes and information collected in the interview process, which some Members have called to be given to the Intelligence and Security Committee, and the interviewer’s recommendation and summary and conclusions, which, as I say, the Government have already given to the Intelligence and Security Committee. The fact that documents that have gone through the ISC have not appeared in the bundles of this week must be in relation to the fact that categories of information given to the Metropolitan police are relevant to this question.

Moving to the documents that Members may have expected to see in the second tranche, as I said on Monday, some messages may not have been captured where people may have previously changed their phones without having backed up their messages or where they had disappearing messages turned on, and I noted to the House on Monday that that included myself. In my circumstance, to answer the questions from the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, it is not that I took a unilateral decision about messages that I felt were in scope or not in scope of the Humble Address; it is merely that I have access to no messages to disclose.

That is an important distinction because the disclosure process that took place involved the Cabinet Office writing to every Department, to permanent secretary and principal private secretary level for all relevant Ministers, special advisers and officials, to set out the guidance on which the disclosure process should take place—that is, for example, to include WhatsApp and other communication services, emails, personal devices, work devices and other messaging platforms—and a clear set of guidance about what would be in scope and not in scope. Permanent secretaries as the accounting officers to Parliament for each of those Departments were individually made liable for ensuring that that disclosure process took place in line with the guidance. The Cabinet Office did not go to each person in each Department and conduct that itself; it executed it through Departments in line with the process that I have set out.

[Alex Burghart]

I just want to make sure that I understand—I hope the Minister will forgive me if I do not. In his case, was it his permanent secretary as the accounting officer who verified that the messages he had were not admissible to the process?

[Darren Jones]

The hon. Gentleman misunderstands: there were no messages to consider and that is different.

[Alex Burghart]

The reason I brought this up is that on Monday the right hon. Gentleman said:

“I do recall having some limited exchanges with Peter Mandelson over WhatsApp, including those I have already discussed in the media”.—[Official Report, 1 June 2026; Vol. 786, c. 853.]

I do not wish to push this point too far, but I do wish to understand: there were messages, so who decided that they were not to be submitted under the Humble Address? Please can he explain?

[Darren Jones]

I have tried to explain the answer to that question a number of times. There was no decision to disregard any messages because there are no messages to consider. What I confirmed on Monday was that I have had WhatsApp exchanges with Peter Mandelson, but I have not saved them on my devices to be able to share with my principal private secretary. The only person who could release those messages, if they have them, would be Peter Mandelson, who has refused to disclose his phone to the process—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. Mr Burghart, please can you observe the courtesies of the House and ensure that the debate continues in an orderly fashion?

[Darren Jones]

As an extension of that question, the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster asked me to comment on how this relates to Morgan McSweeney’s messages. I am afraid that I did not conduct that conversation or investigation, so I cannot answer on the specifics of that question.

I will now turn to some of the specific questions raised by Members during the debate, which I have grouped in a way that I hope is satisfactory to the House. The first group relates to vetting information, information on mitigations, both commercial and related to national security, and the question of attachments. I have already addressed the issue of vetting information. In relation to mitigations, I confirm to the House that I have not personally seen any of the UKSV information nor the summary, recommendations or any mitigation information that was put in place, so I cannot speak to this question from personal experience. However, I note my comment on Monday that the Metropolitan police have permitted us to confirm that the categories of documents that they are holding include vetting information and conflict of interest process material. Unfortunately, that is all I am able to say on the matter.

[Emily Thornberry]

Does the Minister appreciate that there may be a difference between conflict of interest information and national security mitigations, and that he may be able to tell us about some of that information but not able to tell us whether or not there were mitigations to defend national security?

[Darren Jones]

I share the expectation of my right hon. Friend that there would be a difference between commercial mitigations—for example, what investments there may be in particular companies—and mitigations that may have arisen from national security considerations. What I do not know is whether that was the case and how they were dealt with in any particular instance, because I do not have that information to hand.

Lastly on this first group of questions, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) asked me to confirm the relevant detail in relation to the Metropolitan police dates and documents. As I have set out previously, I have been advised that I am not permitted to put that on the public record, but I am happy to go back to the Metropolitan police to see if there is anything further that we can add in due course.

[Sir John Hayes]

When the Metropolitan police have concluded their investigation, all of that material will return to the ISC, and presumably the Government will then want to publish the information, albeit in an appropriate and redacted form.

[Darren Jones]

Again, I do not know which documents the Metropolitan police have, so I cannot speak to them specifically, but I share the sentiment of the right hon. Gentleman’s point.

The shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster asked me to confirm that there was a leak inquiry under way in relation to what appears to be information from UKSV being in the hands of Guardian journalists. I can confirm that that leak inquiry is under way but has not yet concluded.

Questions of judgment and due diligence have been put to me. I have already answered the point about the follow-up questions to the due diligence report and can only reiterate to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom), the words of the Prime Minister when he said that he regrets the appointment and has apologised for it.

The deputy Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), made the helpful suggestion that we should think about codifying the precedent on which the Government rely when making redactions for the future. I commit to taking that away and taking advice, not least on what that might mean in terms of House business and Government business.

My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) made some interesting points about how Humble Addresses may be used in the future, given that the House seems to have decided that it wants to use them more often than has been the case in the past. I was then asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) to confirm the Government’s continued commitment to the duty of candour legislation, which I can confirm. As he knows, there have been discussions with families and others about refining some of the final points in that legislation. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) asked me about freedom of information requests, and I commit to taking that question away and asking officials to try to respond as promptly as possible.

As the Prime Minister has set out, there are clearly significant lessons to be learned from the issues that arose from Peter Mandelson’s appointment, so while the Government consider that they have now duly discharged their obligations in respect of the Humble Address, they will none the less continue work on a number of important areas. Those include our commitment to bring forward legislation to ensure that peerages can be removed from disgraced peers, noting that Peter Mandelson has already been removed from the list of Privy Counsellors, and changing the process for direct ministerial appointments so that due diligence and national security vetting must take place prior to announcement.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I was expecting and hoping that the Minister would come on to Morgan McSweeney’s messages, which were asked about by the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and be clear about whether those messages exist and where they are. If they are with the Metropolitan police, for example, will the Minister commit to going to the police and asking if he can tell us that those messages exist?

[Darren Jones]

I say politely to the hon. Lady that I have already answered all of those questions.

The Government will continue their review with Sir Adrian Fulford, looking at recommendations for the national security vetting system arising from the lessons of the Peter Mandelson case. We are ordering an examination of any security concerns raised during Peter Mandelson’s tenure as ambassador, which the Government Security Group in the Cabinet Office is now taking forward. We are commissioning an independent review of how non-corporate communications channels, including WhatsApp, are used in Government. In addition, the Cabinet Secretary has written to all heads of department to clarify the rules on record keeping and ensure they are being properly applied across Government. The Government have also noted the Intelligence and Security Committee’s comments on the management of sensitive information; I share those concerns, and have expressed them at the Dispatch Box. The Government are committed to raising information security standards, and will take further action on this issue.

As I have committed to previously, I will return to the House to update it on the progress of this work in due course, but on the basis of my statements today and on Monday this week, the Government now consider that they have duly discharged their obligations in respect of the Humble Address. I thank the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, and right hon. and hon. Members for their work on this matter and their contributions to today’s debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Government’s response to the House’s humble Address of 4 February 2026.