Lord Mandelson

Debate between Graham Stuart and Saqib Bhatti

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Saqib Bhatti]

The Prime Minister has brought his judgment into question. The Opposition have been saying that for a couple of years—Oppositions do that—but on this issue, he has marched everyone up the hill and Ministers have gone out to defend him on this issue time and again. His position really is now untenable. I guarantee Labour Members that when they go home and talk to their constituents, they will have to answer questions about why the Prime Minister allowed this to happen.

[Graham Stuart]

My hon. Friend may have heard the powerful speech by the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) earlier in the day about factionalism in the Labour party. The Prime Minister not only appointed Peter Mandelson to the post of ambassador knowing, as he declared today, what he knew, but he previously brought him in as a strategic adviser, advocate and planner in the 2024 Labour general election campaign. All Labour Members are tainted by that association with Mandelson, which was brought about by the leader of their party, now the Prime Minister, who knew about this matter at the time. That perhaps has not been picked up on as fully as it should have been in today’s debate.

[Saqib Bhatti]

I will leave Labour Members to reflect on that because many have spoken up today, but I say once again that they are just words if there is no action.

The judgment of the Prime Minister is deeply, deeply flawed. He alone is responsible for the culture at No. 10. I ran a business. If something was going wrong, the buck stopped with me. He alone is responsible for the culture at No. 10. It is not Morgan McSweeney. He enabled Morgan McSweeney. He needs to be held accountable for his relationship. We need to see the emails and we need to see what the conversations were—that is why this is important—but the buck stops with the Prime Minister.