Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

rose—

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

rose—

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

We have set off a surge of interventions. I will give way to the hon. Lady and then the right hon. Gentleman, and that is it.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I do not expect that to happen, but of course if it did, we would consider it. I will finally give way to the right hon. Member for Islington North.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank the Minister for giving way; he is being very generous with his time. Is he able to confirm whether Peter Mandelson had divested himself of all his financial interests in companies, including peripheries or actuality of Palantir, while he was ambassador in Washington?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

That of course strays into the conflict of interests class of documents, which is still one of the classes that is with the Metropolitan police.

I conclude by saying again that it is very important that the House has this debate today. From the debate in February to today, I have certainly taken my duties, and indeed the Government’s duties, to the House very seriously, as has my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister—I think today is his eleventh appearance in the House on this matter. He will, of course, close the debate and answer any further questions. I commend the motion to the House.

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[Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

It is a genuine privilege to follow the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones). Knowledgeable and passionate Ministers are a huge asset to any Government, and she is a significant loss to this one. If I may say, the same can be said of the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), who sits next to her. The hon. Member for Pontypridd makes important points about the victims of Epstein, which I will not repeat, and she has added considerably to this debate.

I also take the opportunity to join in the tributes that were made earlier to Alan Haselhurst, Madam Deputy Speaker, who occupied your Chair with immense dignity and considerable rigour, but did so with deep warmth and kindness. He will be missed in both Chambers of this place.

Turning to the motion, I will say something about the process that has led to the publication of the documents we are now considering, and then something about their contents. On the process, I start by offering thanks to the officials of the Cabinet Office and the staff of the Intelligence and Security Committee. The whole House will now be conscious of the sheer scale of the task that lay before both those groups of people and the immense work that they all had to put in to turn the process around as quickly as they did. The House will also now appreciate that, given their nature, it was inevitable that a large number of those documents raised questions of either national security or international relations.

On behalf of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I want to make it very clear, as I have before, first that we are very grateful for the words of the Paymaster General, and indeed the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister on previous occasions, on the work that we have done. Secondly, I want to reassure the House that throughout the process, we were rigorous in our view that Government embarrassment was not sufficient cause for redaction of these documents. I hope the House can now see that that is the case, as there is plenty of Government embarrassment left unredacted.

The prejudice that we sought to establish in relation to international relations or national security needed to be real prejudice, and not the vague possibility of that prejudice. That is the way in which we approached the task. I am confident in the redactions that we agreed to make, and indeed in the decisions we took not to support the redactions that we refused to consent to.

In the process that we undertook—I have spoken about this before—two issues of process have arisen. The first is the question of who checks proposed redactions for reasons other than national security or international relations. I am very glad that the Government have agreed that my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) should fulfil that role, as he has now done. The second concerns the grounds for redaction beyond the protection of national security or international relations. As many who have heard these conversations before know, I have been and remain critical of the way the Government have maintained the unilateral right to redact for other reasons. I do not propose to go through all those arguments again. I take that position not because I do not think the Government have a good case to do so, but because I think it is wrong for the Government to assume Parliament’s consent to that case.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

For clarity, is the redaction done in Downing Street—in Government—and then sent to the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s Committee, or is it done by the Committee on grounds of national security and international relations?

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I am happy to give the right hon. Gentleman that clarity. The documents that we received were unredacted documents marked with the proposed redactions the Government sought to make for reasons of protecting national security or international relations. Where we agreed with the Government, we agreed that those redactions should be made; where we disagreed, those redactions were not made. We saw all the documents unredacted, and we decided whether to accept the Government’s proposals for redaction or not. The House made it clear that it wanted the final word on those redactions—yes or no—to be ours as a Committee, and not the Government’s. I hope that is of assistance to the right hon. Gentleman.

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[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I originally thought that a large number of Members would want to attend this debate, because it goes to the heart of so much about the political system of this country, and the power and influence of very wealthy people around the world. I am sure that this is not the only time we will debate the issue, and I hope there will be a more thorough public inquiry into it later down the line.

We should also thank the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) for what she said in her speech, the way she put it, and the way she placed centre stage the victims—some of whom are nameless—of the depravity of Jeffrey Epstein and the whole golden circle surrounding him, as well as the fact that one of those victims took her own life as a result.

The victims were young women who were trafficked and exploited by very wealthy men who felt that they could get away with it. Even after Epstein’s initial conviction, those men carried on gravitating towards his golden light, the money and influence he exuded, and the way he made his money, which was all about helping the super-rich in the United States avoid paying tax by relocating their resources to the US Virgin Islands. The millions that Epstein made, and the millions that were not paid in tax by those very rich people, are millions not spent on health, housing, education and all the other things that working-class communities need.

Somewhere along the line, Epstein was apparently almost forgiven for his crimes, and then they came back much later on. We can now begin to see the whole, horrible story unravelling. Surely there is an object lesson here about unaccountable power, unbelievable levels of arrogance, supreme levels of wealth, and the way in which politicians—probably less wealthy than Epstein and some of his mates—were seduced by the super-yacht, the private island, the private jet, the big dinner, and so on. All of that is a corruption of our political system.

Unless we do something about the influence of big business, super-wealth and money in politics, then everything that Bernie Sanders says about the USA having the best democracy that money can buy will soon apply to this country as well. We have got to be much stronger about needing a purer form of democracy and accountability within our society.

This is a debate on Peter Mandelson. I remember, when Mandelson first appeared in this building as the media director of the Labour party, discussing him with Tony Benn in the Tea Room. Tony had met him at the meeting of the national executive, where he was introduced to the Labour party. I saw Tony that evening and asked him, “What was it like?”, and he said, “Well, this guy Mandelson is going to give us all a lot of trouble.” He then wrote in his diaries that evening:

“I find Mandelson a threatening figure for the future of the Party.”

Tony recognised that Mandelson’s whole objective was a political one: to take the Labour party away from its roots—away from its trade union connections and the working-class communities—and to turn it into a party of business. As the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) and others pointed out earlier, that eventually ended up with Labour Together and the huge amounts of money it spent trying again to subvert the whole principle behind the Labour party.

The results of all that are being paid for day in, day out—in hospitals spending 15% of their expenditure on private finance initiatives, in schools having to pay debts related to Building Schools for the Future and so on. The whole idea was that the state should become an arm of business rather than providing services that are necessary for the people of our society. Mandelson was successful in many ways in turning things away from their original purpose. All the contracts that are now being agreed upon are a consequence of that sort of philosophy and those sorts of political dealings that went on.

In an earlier debate on this subject, I said that there has to be a serious and open public inquiry into the influence of business, money and corruption on our political system. I understand the limitations of the Intelligence and Security Committee and its work, which is why I intervened on the deputy Chair, the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), earlier on. I am sure—he may well agree with me—that this will not be done and dusted by his Committee and that it will actually go on for a very long time, because it goes to the heart of democracy within our society.

I hope that at the end of this, we do have an open public debate about money and politics, and a serious open inquiry that will get to the heart of everything that is going on, because if we do not, we will all be the weaker for it. As the hon. Member for Pontypridd pointed out, the victims here are known to be those young women who had such a terrible experience and terrible time at the hands of the rich and powerful. If we do not have such an inquiry and debate, there will be other victims of the rich and powerful further down the line.

I know that time is of the essence, so I will just talk briefly about Palantir. On 22 July 2025—less than a year ago—Peter Mandelson sent an email to Morgan McSweeney. The subject was a name: Peter Thiel. Mandelson wrote:

“This celebrated techie is in London til Aug 9. I don’t know whether you have been approached already,”

saying it would be good for the PM to meet him—so the ambassador to Washington starts trying to set up meetings with a tech entrepreneur who happens to be a friend and supporter of Donald Trump. Contained in the second tranche of the so-called Mandelson files laid before Parliament, the email is one of a series in which Mandelson personally connected the UK Government to Palantir, the data analytics and surveillance firm co-founded by Thiel, and to the wider network of investors around it, at a time when his own consultancy firm, Global Counsel, still counted Palantir among its clients. Is that corrupt or what? The ambassador to Washington owned a company whose client he was trying to introduce to the head of the British Government via a series of private emails using connections that he had obviously obtained through the Labour party over a very long time. Mandelson did not divest himself of his significant financial stake in 2024 despite official advice that he should do so before taking up his appointment. That advice stated:

“the retained role and interest in Global Counsel would have to cease”,

if Mandelson were appointed His Majesty’s ambassador. But it did not. Mandelson carried on with that, as we well know.

We also know that the Prime Minister met representatives of the firm with Peter Mandelson in Washington. That was the mysterious meeting that apparently nobody was at, although it did happen; of which there is no record, and yet everybody was there; and during which no discussion went on because nothing was reported, and yet we all know that it took place because they were filmed going into it. That took place only a fortnight after Mandelson had started the job.

Days later, on 5 March 2025, a partner in the silicon valley venture firm 137 Ventures—an investor in both Palantir and the defence company Anduril—emailed an invitation for Mandelson to attend the Hill and Valley Forum, a Washington gathering that brings together defence technology executives and Congress. The sender’s name was redacted, but the file notes that Mandelson was attending “with Louis”, who we understand to be Louis Mosley, the head of Palantir’s UK business. And so, this very tight connection of people goes on.

According to Ethan Shone of openDemocracy, Mandelson’s security “mitigations” forbade such one-to-one meetings with former clients like Palantir—a restriction which, like divestment from Global Counsel, the former ambassador assiduously ignored. He did not fulfil the requirements to divest himself and not to follow up those connections, and, as others in the debate have pointed out, he was very generous and free with his email advice to just about everybody, trying to set things up all the time.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I am wondering whether the right hon. Gentleman remembers the issues around covid money, when many Conservative Ministers or peers made introductions to companies that they were linked with. Does he remember the Labour party jumping up and down about how people should not be using their power and connections to get preferential access, and does he see anything ironic about the situation with Peter Mandelson?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

There are many ironies surrounding Peter Mandelson. The most useful thing he ever said was that he hated me, wanted nothing to do with me and woke up every morning trying to get rid of me when I was leader of the Labour party. I take that as a badge of honour, actually, because I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him and the politics that went with him.

Mandelson managed to land a deal for Palantir. That was his achievement, and in his farewell letter to embassy staff, he singled out that one achievement. He wrote that the UK leaves the relationship with the United States

“in a really good condition, with a magnificent state visit and the new US-UK technology partnership—my personal pride and joy that will help write the next chapter of the special relationship—set for next week.”

Obviously the visit went ahead without him.

Palantir confirmed that it would invest £1.5 billion in the UK and expand its Ministry of Defence contract to £750 million over five years, replacing a £75 million, three-year arrangement. The deal was folded into the technology prosperity deal that Trump and the Prime Minister signed at Chequers the next day. In only a short time as ambassador, he embroiled us in all this stuff with Palantir and set up this technology agreement with the USA.

As we all know, because we hear it from our constituents, people who use the NHS are alarmed that Palantir will get hold of their medical records. They are concerned that the company will get hold of the entirety of the NHS and social security records—in other words, crucial personal information on every single person that has lived or died in this country since 1948.

Are we seriously saying that we, as a society and country, are incapable of setting up our own technology arrangement? I do want data sharing within the NHS. I want it to be the case that when someone goes to the doctor, they can access that person’s records quickly and sort out what is wrong with them. I want that technology in place for A&E departments, but I do not want those records to be shared with a company that is busy advising Israel on how it will go about its bombardment of Gaza and trying to get hold of other contracts all around the world

Do we have to mortgage ourselves to an American multinational that will have control of and access to vast amounts of data? Surely to goodness, we have enough ambition and ability to develop our own systems within the NHS. We are all proud of the NHS, but let us not destroy it by handing it over to the private sector. Let us not destroy the whole philosophy behind it by giving it over to those who will make money out of it rather than deal with the obvious health issues that so many people face.

I hope that the lesson from all this is that when the political system becomes corrupted by lack of principle and the amounts of money made available to people—the private donations that are still made by private health interests and others to Members and the parties represented in this House—we are all the losers; democracy is the loser, and ultimately the price is paid by the poorest and most vulnerable people within our society.

Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

All of the Prime Minister’s messages have been disclosed in the bundle, in the same way as those of every other Minister.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

May I take the Minister back to the answer given to the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) earlier? Palantir is a very big and very dangerous outfit. The Government are developing a close relationship with Palantir—platforming and so on. Could the Minister assure the House that everything to do with Palantir will now be paused until we can get to the heart of the matter of how it first became embroiled in Government contracts, how it gained them and what its influence over this Government is, particularly via Peter Mandelson?

[Darren Jones]

I slightly challenge the assumption that the Government are developing a “close relationship” with Palantir. As far as I am aware, that is not true. I think Palantir has been awarded two or so contracts for Government services, and it continues to bid for services. In line with our procurement policy, it is for Departments to decide whom they give contracts to, but the right hon. Gentleman is right: there are a whole range of issues that, in line with procurement policy, Ministers and officials will need to consider, including the protection of people’s personal data, the conduct of companies, and their ability to deliver public services in line with our values.

Debate on the Address

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 13th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate His Majesty on delivering the Gracious Speech, and I concur with the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) that investing 0.7% of GDP in international development aid will bring greater stability and increase our ability to secure greater diplomacy, as well as development. I think that should be our focus. I also thank him for the work he does on the Public Accounts Committee.

The intersection of crises bearing down on our planet, our nation and our communities demands a bold response in this parliamentary Session. I recognise the current bind, but as we move into the next chapter of Labour’s story, there is one consideration that I want the Government to take through this legislative programme: how we bring our communities, our country and our fractious planet together. Such vision and policy must be the thread that gathers and inspires us.

Against the backdrop of fast-paced change, this planet is breaking. The grotesque inequalities, climate degradation and conflict are driving people apart. At home we have had 14 years of austerity, whereby the harder someone works, the tougher it gets. That is why I have called for a new economic orthodoxy, as neoliberalism preys on the working class and exploits all who want to get on as much as those who cannot. As people are fleeced, the energy giants and water bosses profit, despite putting carbon in our air and sewage in our rivers, such as the Ouse in York—the second worst in the country. The clean water Bill must pull this service back into public hands and public accountability.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s call to take water back into public ownership. Does she agree that in setting the share price at which we buy it back, we should take account of the cost of pollution, of the money that is being paid to distant shareholders with no investment or interest in this country, and of the inconvenience caused to so many of our residents by constant leaks and the waste of water? Shareholders should pay the price of it, not our constituents.

[Rachael Maskell]

I do agree. It is daylight robbery, and people should not be profiting from our natural resources. We should not see the levels of pollution that exist in our rivers, which should be pure and clean. I have a sewer running through the middle of my city, and it is not acceptable. It is right to legislate, but also to ensure that we are not adding carbon to our natural environment. On airport and road expansion, we should ensure that we bring down levels of carbon, and I fear that might not be the case with airport expansion.

The draft commonhold and leasehold Bill is welcome, as is freezing ground rents, but as developers extract all they can and people pay extortionate rents and management costs, we need to see good-quality housing as a right and to rethink the model. As I have witnessed in my constituency, co-operative housing is a powerful antidote that is worth investing in, alongside a new generation of council-built housing for the common good.

The system is rigged against ordinary people, as it was 126 years ago, when trade unions came together to form the Labour party. It is our duty in this Parliament to once again set the ambition to drive transformation for our communities, address the grotesque inequalities that drive people apart, and rewire the system to bring us together. That is our purpose. As the unions fought for common terms and better pay, Labour reimagined a society in which everyone can get on, a welfare state for those in need, and an NHS in which Bevan positioned the duke and the dustman as equals. Not understanding a collective, cohesive society puts all this at risk, as Opposition parties seek to exploit opportunity and people, sell off our common assets and sow division. That is why Labour has an immense obligation to be bold and ambitious, not for those who take all they can, but for those who serve, work and play their part—and to take away the stigma and barriers for those who cannot. I implore the Government to maintain the rights of those with indefinite leave to remain, as new communities work alongside established communities. When it comes to restraining traumatised children, on which the Government are consulting, I simply warn them: don’t! I will not support that. All children must be treated with dignity—nothing less.

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[David Davis]

I think the answer to the question is, “No, it didn’t,” but the hon. Member should be aware that it was only two months ago that a Labour Member described me as the MP who is never knowingly on message, which is a label I espouse—I do not mind that. No Government have got this right. We need a welfare system that looks after the disabled and people who have no choice about what they are suffering, but not one that makes it an even choice to be on the dole or in a job.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Is the right hon. Member aware that the discussion held some months ago, when the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions proposed big cuts in personal independence payments, caused unbelievable levels of stress and despair to often isolated people in receipt of PIP who have a carer who comes in to help them, and that the Government are still undertaking a review, the intention of which is to lower the personal independence payments bill? Does he agree that we should end that kind of debate and instead look at the needs of people with disabilities, particularly those who struggle to survive under the current system and especially those in receipt of PIP?

[David Davis]

I will be careful how I answer the right hon. Member because I have an interest to declare here: I have a disabled grandchild, and her mother is one of the people who suffers the stress he talked about. As I say, we need a humane system that deals with people properly. Our current system for supporting disabled people and people looking after disabled people is incredibly bureaucratic, unpleasant and nasty to deal with. That is not the area of welfare that we need to deal with; it is principally the area of employment that we need to deal with. We want to get people back to work, because there is no better way out of poverty than employment, rather than, as it were, being on the dole.

To come back to the thrust of my argument, what is it that we are talking about paying for? I will pick three issues—I could pick any number, but the top three issues that matter to my constituents are healthcare, education and defence. Our health service needs radical reform. I know we have a Bill in this King’s Speech, but it does not look to me like it will have a sufficiently radical impact. For some reason, we do not actually speak enough about the fundamental aims of our health service. Healthcare must be free at the point of delivery—that is an absolute—but it also must do its job of saving lives, and we turn our face away from that too often. Too many Britons are dying early and avoidably under a system that swallows money without delivering the outcomes. Every year, 125,000 deaths are listed officially as avoidable, and the situation has worsened in recent years. It went from 129 deaths per 100,000 people to 156 in the course of a decade. That is a huge increase and, as a result, we have an avoidable death rate that is higher than all our comparator nations. I am not just talking about rich nations like Japan; we are even worse off than countries like Portugal that are much poorer than we are. It is an extraordinary problem that we have to face.

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[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

This debate is taking place in an almost surreal atmosphere. We have a psychodrama going on about whether the Prime Minister will be challenged for the leadership of the Labour party, whether he will still be Prime Minister by the time we come to vote on the motion, and whether the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is going to challenge and take over. The Government have been in office for less than two years and seem not to be reflecting on the results of last Thursday’s elections. It is obvious that the Government lost a huge amount of support because of their perceived failure to deliver on the promises made in the 2024 manifesto, and their vote split asunder to independents and Greens or to Reform.

At the same time, there is a horrific growth in our society of far-right racism and intolerance—a horror show in our society—with the growth of Islamophobia, of antisemitism and of all forms of racism. There was an attack on a prayer room in Blackburn on Monday evening; precious little was said about it on any of the media. Shame on them for not reporting it. They rightly report on antisemitic attacks on synagogues; the same should apply to any community that is under attack if we are to succeed in bringing our communities together and to show that we need to stand up against racism in absolutely any form in which it rears its ugly head.

This weekend, there will be an appearance in London by Tommy Robinson, attended by a lot of people, some of whom presumably adhere to his worldview, and others who will be there out of a mixture of frustration and lots of other things. It is a very dangerous situation and a very dangerous time. Every Member of this House will have been out on the streets last week for the local elections, and they will have picked up the language and understood what is going on. We have to be absolutely united against racism and racist violence in absolutely any form. I, for one, will be on the anti-racist and Palestine march on Saturday to show my support for the anti-racist campaigns in our society.

Behind all this lies an horrific level of inequality and the unrequited ambition of ordinary citizens in our society. We have become a society of food banks and billionaires, with a tax system that encourages the growth of billionaires and restricts the opportunity of so many of the poorest in our society. Unless we address the issues of social injustice and inequality that are so prevalent in our society, the situation is going to get worse. It is a feeding ground for the cheap, nonsense, headline-grabbing stuff that the Reform party comes out with all over the country. People from Reform lack a solution to any problem other than blaming the nearest minority they can find and pretending that the great threat to this country is asylum seekers and refugees, when actually they are desperate human beings trying to survive in a very complicated world. By their very actions, people from Reform drive humanity out of the discussion and the political debate. It is up to us to put it back there.

Reform plays on many issues, the first of which is housing, which is in absolute crisis. Local authorities are unable to get the funds necessary to build the council housing they all want to build, because of a failed funding model that does not allow them to develop 100% of sites. For example, in London the mayor has said that major sites will now have only a 20% social housing requirement. In other words, 80% of the development will not be available for people on the housing waiting list, or the needs register, as it is usually referred to. That drives many people who cannot get council housing and cannot afford to buy into the private rented sector.

I supported the Renters’ Rights Bill that was passed in the previous Session. I could see nothing wrong with it and much good in it, particularly the ending of section 21 evictions. It is a pity that the Government did not end section 21 evictions in July 2024, which they could have done—that would have saved a lot of tenancies at the time—but I am pleased that happened. Nevertheless, that legislation did not deal with the fundamental issue, which is the level of rent in our communities. It would cost at least £2,000 a month to rent a one-bedroom flat in my constituency. Roughly speaking, that is £500 a week. It is three, four or five times the level of rent for a council tenancy.

If a person has access to DWP benefits, some of their rent is paid through housing benefit, but if the rent is above the local housing allowance—and it nearly always is—families on universal credit have to subsidise their rent out of their benefit because they simply cannot afford it, and they have to stay somewhere. If they become homeless, they get moved far away, and we have children making horrendous journeys because they do not want to lose contact with their beloved primary school. That is the normal story all over inner-city areas in Britain today. We can do something much better about that.

I am sad that the King’s Speech does not address the issues in the clear way that it should. People are crying out for some degree of security, and housing security is fundamental. Is it right that when we all walk into Parliament every day we could count so many homeless people on the streets of London? Who could count the number of people begging to try to get a bit of money to get into a night shelter? They then spend the rest of the day trying to get together another £17 to spend another night in a shelter. What a terrible existence those people have—and that is pretty normal across every major city. We all travel a lot, and we know that every major station is surrounded by people begging for money. What is wrong with us that we cannot recognise that something can and should be done about that? I wish that was the case.

There is much else in respect of insecurity in society that has to be addressed. A large number of people are in insecure employment, despite welcome changes in employment legislation, and because wages are so low and prices and rent are so high, so many people are doing two jobs. How does a parent doing two jobs spend time with their children? How do they help them with their homework? How do they take them to a club? How do they do any of the things that we all love to do with our families? That parent simply cannot, because they are tied down to two jobs, and in some cases even more.

We have to recognise that we are bringing up a whole generation of children in this society who spend less time with each other and less time with their parents or carers, because of the economic stress and the cost of living. Can the Government not intervene and say, “We’re prepared to control food prices if they start going up at a ridiculous rate”? The Labour Government of the 1970s controlled food prices in order to control inflation, and I remember it being quite a successful policy. It was very controversial when it was mooted by Roy Hattersley, of all people—he was not on my wing of the Labour party by any manner of means—but he felt the need to do it.

[Tom Hayes]

The right hon. Gentleman is talking about bringing younger people together. My constituent Caroline is watching this debate from Meon Road in Littledown and Iford in my constituency, where, as it happens, last Thursday a Labour councillor won for the first time ever: Councillor Patrick Connolly. Caroline wants to bring younger people together and she welcomes the Government signing the UK back up to Erasmus+. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is a good thing for British young people to mix with their European counterparts and welcome this move closer to Europe?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I absolutely welcome the Erasmus scheme—indeed, I wanted to retain the scheme during the endless debates on the withdrawal agreement, because I can absolutely see the value of it. I also see the value of overseas students coming to this country; we should be encouraging them, but they are put off by the very high student fees. Something has to be done about that.

Many colleagues have brought up issues with the services within our society. The water industry has come up many times. I am a London MP and therefore fall within the purview of Thames Water, whose record is appalling and atrocious at every conceivable level. The water industry as a whole has had more than £70 billion taken out of it in profits and dividends since privatisation. We have had statements by every Secretary of State that I can remember for the past 35 years, saying that they will look at the regulation model to make sure there is proper control of what the water companies do. Yet every year the sewage pouring into our rivers and streams gets worse. The chalk streams are destroyed; the fish on our coastline are polluted and killed. It just gets worse and worse.

It is surely pretty obvious that the private ownership model, where the motive is profit, not service, has absolutely failed. We should take the whole water industry back into public ownership. It was public ownership that cleaned it up, it was public ownership that constructed the reservoirs and all the infrastructure, and it is public ownership that will deliver clean water in the future. However, it also needs to be democratic. We should not just have the appointment of a national water company or regional water companies, where the Secretary of State decides who the directors are. We should include the workforce, the local trade unions, the local business community, the local authority—we should make it a matter of community pride to be part of the water industry and the water company.

[Anna Dixon]

Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise the need to strengthen the regional water authorities, and to have a greater focus there on the consumer voice? Would he also agree that the special administration regime for Thames Water might offer an opportunity to explore alternative public ownership, such as mutuals, where we could have workers sitting on a board alongside consumers?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Yes, the water authority obviously needs to be strengthened and we need to explore all the options. The hon. Lady has probably got the gist of where I am going on this issue: wanting a more democratic form of ownership. Involving local government in that would be the obvious thing to do. After all, the London County Council had a big say post the Metropolitan Water Board and so on. We need to think about how we improve local involvement, because local people are the best guardians of the water service, making sure that we do not pollute our rivers and streams and that we do provide good-quality, safe water for everybody.

There are other areas of public ownership. I welcome the development of Great British Railways and the public ownership of the rail companies, particularly the train operating companies and the infrastructure. However, there is no public ownership of freight, and the retention of the principle of open access to our service is, to me, a sort of Trojan horse to bring the private sector back on to the railway network. Surely we need to look at that—and when the Government look at it, I would be grateful if they would also look at the ludicrous railway fares in Britain compared with any other railway anywhere in Europe, which are far cheaper and far more efficient to run.

I have a couple of other things I want to say before I sit down. Last year the world spent $2.4 trillion on warfare and weapons. This year it will be more than $3 trillion. Pretty well every country in the world is spending more and more on defence. I have heard the Prime Minister say that he wants Britain to go up immediately to 3%, and ultimately to 5%. The same kind of language is used across Europe, and in other countries as well, including Russia, China and so on. Everyone is massively increasing defence expenditure, and that defence expenditure ends up in the wars and in massive profits for the arms companies around the world.

It is a bit sad that the King’s Speech said nothing about funding the United Nations properly, or about peace initiatives to try to promote a ceasefire, difficult as that would be—I understand all that, but it has to happen—in the ghastly war between Russia and Ukraine, or the crazy war in Iran that President Trump has got us involved with. Despite the British Government telling us that they are not part of this war, in reality the bombing takes place from RAF Fairford and other bases in Britain. Surely we need an agenda for peace, not an agenda for war.

Israel’s bombardment of the Palestinian people in Gaza is an act of genocide against the Palestinian people. It is abominable and appalling, and we as a country have maintained the arms supplies to Israel throughout that conflict. We have allowed the use of RAF Akrotiri. We have had the overflying of Gaza, so the RAF know exactly what happened in Gaza, because they took all the pictures of it. Would it not have been good if the Government instead had said they would join with the Hague group of nations in the UN, who are determined to adhere to the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court decisions?

We need to look to the real issues facing this world—climate change, environmental destruction, global inequality and poverty, or the 70 million people worldwide who are refugees—rather than just the language of more and more money on arms and more and more preparedness for war. Can we not have an agenda for peace? If we cannot talk about peace when a war is going on, what is the point of ever talking about peace? I would hope that something could happen with that.

This was supposed to be, the Prime Minister said, a speech for hope for young people. Well, fine—I want hope for young people. I admire the young people of my community and others for what they do, for the efforts they put into so much, and for the joy and music and everything that they bring. But those who have been to university all tell me they are saddled with massive university debts. They cannot get anywhere to live; they are sharing flats into their 40s or beyond because they cannot afford to pay off a student debt and buy anywhere, and they cannot get council housing because they are not eligible. Others are working in the gig economy, being ripped off by delivery companies that do not pay them properly. Many of them are in school but not achieving everything they could, because we are over-competitive in the way we run our schools, and we are not inclusive enough.

Let us give some hope to young people; let us listen to young people, including young people with special needs and disabilities. They want to be part of our society too, not to be told that we are spending too much money on personal independence payments or on benefits. They want that support. Give hope to people. We cannot achieve everything that we want to achieve—at least, I guess most of us do—if we persist with the economic inequality within our society and the social injustices that follow from it.

This King’s Speech is such a missed opportunity. It could have been so good. It could have put so much hope in so many people’s minds. The lesson of last Thursday is that if we do not give people hope, they can go off in all kinds of directions. We can end up in a very nasty and a very dark place if we take away any opportunity for hope within our society.

Peter Mandelson: Government Appointment

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 21st April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett]

No, I will make progress; there are many Members on both sides wanting to speak. The hon. Member may well be pleased with some of the things I am going to say. I am developing an argument, and I want to proceed with it.

The question I have not heard answered is why a group of people in No. 10—possibly the Prime Minister as well—felt that that level of pressure should be placed on the Foreign Office in favour of appointing Mandelson. There are two possible answers, but I will focus on one. The political unit in No. 10, possibly the Prime Minister too, wanted Mandelson because he was their close political ally and because he was plugged into a vast international network of what we might call the billionaire class. The truth is that much of the nexus of wealth that Mandelson was plugged into—so was the US President, by the way—was centred around Epstein. Let me pause for a second to say that none of these facts would have emerged were it not for the courage, bravery and resistance of the women who were treated so appallingly on Epstein island.

Getting Mandelson into Washington as part of that network—a political network of billionaires—was of the highest priority. All this leaves a bad taste. The Government promised the people change, but the change that they sought was to further accelerate the integration of the British state and Government into the networks of the richest people. People in our country—certainly those in my constituency—did not vote for that. They wanted change in their ordinary lives: a better NHS, improvements to the cost of living and so on. We have a long way to go to deliver that. What we have delivered is a disaster with the appointment of Mandelson.

I have raised the question of unemployment four times in recent months. There is growing unemployment in our area. It is hard to see how the time that the Government spent ingratiating themselves to Washington helped the unemployed and poor.

Just think about Mandelson’s involvement with Russian and Chinese business. So obnoxious is China supposed to be that this place has banned all Chinese-based networks, as though they were the agencies of an enemy state. How can it be that Mandelson’s links were seen to be of such low risk? This House has spent literally hours discussing the appalling behaviour of Putin and Russia in relation to eastern Europe. All these things should have counted against Mandelson, but when they were weighed in the balance, they counted less than the opportunity that Mandelson offered of access to a network of people, which included the US President.

I will make one final point. Mandelson played a key role in a faction that sought to change the strategic direction of the Labour party and the Government. The truth is that they wanted to change the Labour party into something it never was.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

The hon. Member is making an excellent and important speech. Is he aware that most of Labour Together’s supporters and, as I understand it, bankrollers had nothing whatsoever to do with the traditions of the Labour movement and that the organisation was merely using a name in order to try to change the nature of the Labour party away from its traditional socialist objectives?

[Jon Trickett]

I have spoken in a previous debate about Labour Together, so I will let the right hon. Member’s comments stand for themselves.

This was a faction that sought to change the Labour party into something that it never was. If we continue down the path that has been chosen, I fear that we will be in a downward spiral from which we will not escape.

Security Vetting

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 20th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I did ask Sir Chris Wormald to carry out a review. I worked on the basis that all the relevant information would be shared with him. It was only last week that I found out from Sir Chris that he himself had not been provided with information that he should have been provided with when he was carrying out the review on my behalf.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Can I take the Prime Minister back to the question asked by the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott)? She asked quite simply why the Prime Minister did not ask any questions whatsoever about the nature of the security clearing that Mandelson had achieved or why there was any doubt about him. Was the Prime Minister so obsessed with his determination to appoint that tainted figure to be ambassador to Washington that he ignored the rest, and the officials just went along with it? Why did he not ask the simple straight question?

[The Prime Minister]

Peter Mandelson was given security clearance, and that was clear to everyone, including myself. [Interruption.] He was given clearance; he was cleared. He would not have started the role if he had not been given clearance. As soon as it came to my attention last week that that was against the recommendation of UKSV, I asked for the information that I have now put before the House.

Middle East

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

There is more we can do on defence and security, such as collaborating and co-operating about the particular capability, in addition to the amount of money that we are spending. That is what we are focusing on with our allies in the EU.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Britain’s military co-operation with the USA and Israel has enabled Israel to commit acts of genocide against the people of Gaza, the Palestinian people, and has enabled the United States to undertake this massive illegal bombardment of Iran. Can the Prime Minister assure the House that from now on the military co-operation and supply of weapons and parts to both Israel and the United States will be suspended while this appalling war goes on in Iran, which is a danger not just to the peace of the whole region but, clearly, to the peace of the whole world?

[The Prime Minister]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman and the House that the permission to use our bases is strictly for defensive purposes, and in particular to protect our nationals in the region. We have 200,000 or 300,000 of our nationals in the region. Iranian strikes were coming into their range and into the Gulf states that I visited last week, hitting infrastructure and being deliberately aimed at our service personnel. It is my duty to protect them and I will continue to do so.

Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address Motion

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

I refer my hon. Friend to the list of changes that the Government are undertaking in my statement earlier, from the work of the Ethics and Integrity Commission and a review of the business appointment rules to looking at the role of lobbying and transparency, to make sure that there are consequences for the few people who seek to breach those rules. Alongside the duty of candour Bill, which has been mentioned in the debate, that will be the widest range of changes to our ethics and standards framework in many, many years, if not a generation. I reiterate, as I said in my statement, that the vast majority of public servants serve the public for the right reasons and adhere to the rules. Evidently, when there are those who seek to evade them, we need to ensure that we are more effective at catching that in future.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I find this faux outrage about Mandelson astonishing. He is a man who had been closely involved with the leadership of the Labour party ever since Tony Blair and very closely with the current Prime Minister since 2020. They must have known his character; they must have known what he was like. In the documents that the Government are now producing, will we know every piece of advice that was given to the Prime Minister by his officials and by the Foreign Office? Specifically, will there be a record of any verbal briefings given to the Prime Minister before he made the calamitous decision to send Mandelson to Washington? The public need to know why the Prime Minister, despite all the knowledge about Mandelson, felt the need to go ahead with the appointment.

[Darren Jones]

The tranche of documents today that relate to the appointment and then the dismissal of Peter Mandelson as ambassador is inclusive of all the documents held by Government, bar those that have been held back by the Metropolitan police for its criminal investigation. There are no further documents that have not been published.

Middle East

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the concerns of her constituents, and I understand just how worried they will be, as will all our constituents who are in the area. That is why it is important that we take measures in the region, as we are doing, to try to take the missiles out of the air. That is the reason we have given permission to the US to use the bases for the limited and specific purposes I have set out.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Last Friday, the talks in Geneva were apparently making good progress and there was hope that there would be some kind of agreement between the United States and Iran. Some 12 hours later, President Trump ordered attacks on Iran, the first victims of which were a group of schoolchildren attending school in the morning. They in no way can be held responsible for anything in Iran, whether human rights abuses or anything else.

In the Prime Minister’s statement, it is unclear to me under which circumstances US forces will be allowed to use RAF bases. Can they use bases in this country to attack Iran? Can they use RAF Akrotiri for that? Are we—this country—sharing information with the US to further its war aims against Iran? Could we not instead adopt a stance of trying to bring about an immediate ceasefire to prevent further dreadful loss of life across every country in the whole region and the danger of this escalating into a semi-global conflict?

Labour Together and APCO Worldwide: Cabinet Office Review

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

I think the question has been withdrawn, Mr Speaker.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Can I take the Minister back to the strange answer that he gave to the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), who asked for a full inquiry into all the actions and activities of Labour Together, including the behaviour of Morgan McSweeney and the hon. Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons)? I want the inquiry to extend to their undermining of the Labour party leadership between 2015 and 2020—the systemic briefing and attacks, and the general undermining of the interests of the Labour party while Labour Together claimed to support it. A single inquiry by a single person does not cut it. There needs to be an open, much more public investigation into not just Labour Together’s behaviour but the sources of its funding, expenditure and donations. Will the Minister confirm that political donations are not just cash payments but include the secondment of staff and the use of facilities, all of which ought to be publicly and openly declared, and clearly have not been?

[Darren Jones]

The Electoral Commission has looked at some of these issues and fined Labour Together for previous errors, but other than that investigation, I am not aware of any accusations of illegal or improper donations to Labour Together or other organisations. As I said, it is important that the Government investigate matters that relate to the Government and ministerial appointments, but questions for Labour Together as a private organisation are questions for its board.

Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

I believe the documents will show that the Prime Minister was lied to by Peter Mandelson.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

It is very clear that the issue has been referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee and that it will look at issues of national security and international relations. I intervened in the debate on this matter; it is possible that the Chief Secretary heard that intervention. I want him to be very clear that in the event of the committee discovering commercial links from Mandelson to any company, including Palantir but not excluding others, they will be pursued and will not be ignored because they do not necessarily impact immediately on the very narrow definition of national security and international relations.

[Darren Jones]

The commission for information from Departments that is taking place has not yet resulted in those documents being shared with the Cabinet Office. If issues need to be pursued further once the documents are shared, we reserve the right to do so.