Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry]

The right hon. Gentleman tempts me down a path that I was not going to go down, although I have gone down it for quite some length in the Committee hearings. It seems to me that all these papers tend to show one thing: the Prime Minister was not particularly interested in the appointment of the ambassador to the United States. He was certainly not a good friend of his: there is no correspondence between them, there are no chatty messages and there is no attempt to get the Prime Minister to vote for Mandelson when he was standing for chancellor of the University of Oxford—I mean, there is not a friendship at all.

The criticism that I make, and I make openly, is that I think the decision was subcontracted to others who were close to Mandelson. The criticism that one can level at the Prime Minister is that he delegated and he did not watch sufficiently what was going on, essentially giving power to others who then abused it—I think that is central. That is not very flattering to the Prime Minister, but it is an honest assessment of the evidence that I have heard. I think the appointment was being pushed and I think that it was being pushed by his then chief of staff, who has a style—and that style is, “When I want to do something, I will go for it hard, I will go for it fast and I will push everybody out of the way.” Once Mandelson had not been elected chancellor at Oxford, someone who should have been a marginal candidate—and had been, as I understand it, just in November 2024—suddenly, within two weeks, moved from being a borderline candidate to being the main person in the frame.

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

The right hon. Lady persuades us that there is a good hypothesis, as she has described, for how this has happened, although we will never know—only the Prime Minister will know. However, does she accept that there is another hypothesis: that the Prime Minister was convinced early that this was the right thing to do, that the system accepted that that was his judgment, and that nobody sought sufficiently strongly to try to persuade him otherwise, until the appointment was finally confirmed?

[Emily Thornberry]

We may be talking about the same thing. Another way of putting it is that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff had taken responsibility for it on his behalf and was pushing it, and the power that the chief of staff had was because he was the chief of staff to the Prime Minister. It is borderline one way or the other.

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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.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

For the sake of completeness, will my right hon. and learned Friend explain whether the Committee saw the third category of documents—those redacted or withheld because of the police inquiry—or whether the Committee labours under the same degree of ignorance as the rest of us?

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[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I think we may have to wait for the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister to explain the position from the Government’s perspective. I can say only that what was put in front of us did not, I think, include the documents that the police had sought to have withheld. I cannot say that that is the case in every instance, but we do not believe that there has been complete disclosure yet. We think there will be further documents put before us, which the police currently have in their possession, so it may well be that there is further work for the Committee to do. My right hon. Friend will recognise from his long experience that we will apply the same degree of rigour and impartiality to any further documents put before us as to the documents we have already seen.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I just wanted to ask one more question for clarity, because this is incredibly useful. On the redactions that were made because of personal information, for example, did the Committee see the unredacted version of those documents, or had they been redacted by the time they got to the ISC?

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

The answer to the hon. Lady’s question is that we will have seen only the documents to which there were proposed redactions for the purposes of either national security or international relations. However, we may well also have seen other proposed redactions to the same documents. The reason that I have raised concerns in the past about the breadth of those proposed redactions for other reasons is that the Committee has seen some of those proposed redactions, but, of course, we have no way of knowing what proportion of such proposed redactions we have seen—if a document does not contain within it redactions that the Government have proposed for either international relations or national security reasons, the document would not have come before us at all.

[Kirsty Blackman]

The Paymaster General said that those redactions marked with three stars are the ones that were redacted with agreement from the Committee. Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that redactions marked by three stars relate to the ISC and that other redactions are marked differently?

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

Yes, I can—and this is an important point. The Intelligence and Security Committee wanted to be extremely clear that we took responsibility only for the redactions that we had considered and agreed. The Government, to be fair to them, have always accepted that those redactions that the Government made without the involvement of my Committee would appear on the documents differently, and they do. The House will be able to see exactly the difference when the documents are considered.

I need to make it clear that I am not an enthusiast for the use of Humble Addresses to demand disclosure of documents at all, whichever party may choose to use them. That is simply because I think it is inappropriate to involve the monarch in a political argument, but if we are to have them, or indeed any other motions that demand the disclosure of material, we should be clear about the grounds on which the Government are entitled to redact that material.

[Hannah Spencer (Gorton and Denton) (Green)]

I have had the privilege of meeting some of the women who survived Epstein’s abuse, and I pay tribute to them and to those who are no longer with us. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that as we rightly discuss the processes that took place, we must also highlight the sheer bravery of those women, and that that should be front and centre in this debate? Does he agree that this appalling episode, in which the victims were overlooked and Mandelson was still appointed despite his links to Epstein, must lead to a fundamental change in political culture?

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I do agree with the point that the hon. Lady makes, and I think that that argument was put very forcefully and eloquently by the hon. Member for Pontypridd, which she may have heard a moment ago.

I want to return to the grounds on which the Government are entitled to redact material under a Humble Address motion or similar motions. It seems to me not only that Parliament should have clarity about the grounds on which the Government seek to redact such material but that the proper time to have that clarity is when such a motion is first agreed, not as documents begin to be disclosed in response to it.

I want to make a suggestion, and I hope that the Government will see it as a helpful one, because it is genuinely meant as such. I suggest that this House agrees standard rules by which a Government may make a redaction and the reasons for it, and that those should be used in all similar situations in the future so that we have clarity. The Government have relied on a variety of legislative and common practice routes to support their right to redact, or in some cases even to withhold documents altogether, in relation to this Humble Address. I think that the process would benefit from consolidation of those reasons into a single document that the House can then endorse. It would save this argument being rerun, or at least limit it to a discussion of any specific grounds for redaction that the Government seek to rely on beyond the agreed reasons.

I will turn to the content of the documents and what they tell us. I have said very little about them so far in order to, I hope, preserve the integrity of the process that the ISC has been conducting at the House’s instruction. There is, of course, lots of interest in the documents—in how, for example, the ambassador to the United States steadfastly refused to stay in his lane as a diplomat and instead offered his advice on almost every aspect of the Government’s activity; in the fact that he was held in such high regard, not to say awe, by so many members of the Government; and in the slapdash approach to secure communications, to which the Government, and perhaps also my Committee, will return.

It is important to remember that this whole exercise, as I think the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee said, was supposed to be about interrogating how Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador came to be made. It would be churlish not to accept that Lord Mandelson had successes in the role. That indicates that he had merits as a candidate for the job that the Prime Minister was entitled to consider, but considering someone for a role is very different from appointing them to it—especially someone who had such obvious and well known risks, and especially to an appointment of such evident importance and sensitivity. That is why I find the process of making the appointment so concerning and so surprising.

I accept that it is unfashionable or even heretical to say it these days, but I have a soft spot for the Prime Minister. I do not think it is just because I like the idea of lawyers with knighthoods being in charge, though I do; it is really because I am an enthusiast for good government. The question of whether one supports a Government’s policies is one thing, but we should all be in favour of good government none the less. I want to see responsible decision making, considered judgments, a preference for evidence over instinct, and flashy ideas properly tested to ensure that they will actually work. That is good government to me, and I thought that in this Prime Minister’s Administration I would see it, but good government requires that where a sensitive appointment carries considerable risk, extra work is done to understand that risk and mitigate it. These documents do not show that.

Peter Mandelson’s letter to the then Foreign Secretary—now Deputy Prime Minister—has become famous for his assurance that the Government would not regret his appointment, and ranks up there with “peace for our time” and Michael Fish’s pre-hurricane weather forecast in the pantheon of poor predictions. But there is something else interesting about it, and that is its date—18 November 2024—which makes it clear that Lord Mandelson was at the very least under serious consideration for the ambassador position in mid-November. The vetting process did not begin until late December, with everyone then being told—this is very clear—that it should be completed in time for Mandelson to begin work in January. There are several mentions in the documents of the urgency of that from officials. We know already that the National Security Adviser considered the process strangely rushed, and in the latest drop of documents, we see that in volume II, part I, page 21 it says:

“The SPAD work has shown just how slick this can be when needed.”

Page 66 says:

“We have had quite a bit of senior interest in the processing of this case (not the details merely that it goes smoothly)”.

If officials had been asked to start that work earlier, they could have taken longer over it, and surely more time and consideration would have been beneficial in this complex and controversial case.

Indeed, the haste with which things were being done was apparent elsewhere. In another document, an official points out that the Prime Minister had announced his choice for ambassador before agrément had been granted. In other words, the United States had not agreed to accept Lord Mandelson as ambassador at that point. That, the official says, should not have happened.

It is, and was, clear to everyone that this was a controversial appointment: perhaps high reward, but definitely high risk. There were substantial reasons to worry about it—we have heard several of them—and almost all of them were very public knowledge. That should have given everyone—perhaps especially the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office as the appointing Department—pause for thought, yet we know from page 106 of part III of this volume that UK Security Vetting informed the FCDO of its recommendation in the last week of January 2025 and the FCDO granted the developed vetting certificate on 29 January 2025. Not much pause for thought there. Worse still, as others have pointed out, we have not seen mitigations—ones that were clearly agreed to be necessary—evidenced anywhere. Good government this was not.

It has been said by many on the Government’s behalf that mistakes can be made, and that is of course true. When in opposition, the Prime Minister pointed out more than once that Prime Ministers are accountable for the tone and character of the Governments they lead and for how those Governments transact their business, and he was right. These documents show that in the making of this very important and sensitive decision, there was much wrong with the tone and character of this Government.

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[Sir John Hayes]

Indeed, you will chastise me if I do not stick to my chronology precisely, Madam Deputy Speaker.

As the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) said, there is some confusion about the character of mitigation. We certainly know that nothing has been provided in respect of mitigation or about the reaction to the flags about Mandelson’s associations with senior figures in foreign states or his personal circumstances, yet Sir Oliver Robbins gave evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee in April—its Chair has made this clear—in which he said that clearance could be approved if

“risks identified as of highest concern…could be managed and/or mitigated.”

Such mitigations were meant to have been noted in an email from Ian Collard, the Foreign Office head of security, noting the decision to grant Mandelson’s clearance. According to Sir Oliver Robbins, that email recorded

“the ways in which we would manage”

Mandelson’s clearance and “the mitigations”. Sir Oliver Robbins’s claim was supported by the top official in charge of gathering the Humble Address material, Cat Little. She told MPs that she had seen an email that

“sets out the decision to grant DV and some mitigations.”

There was certainly a stated need to manage the risks associated with Peter Mandelson’s appointment and an acknowledgment that that might be done through some process of mitigation, but we have heard no more. It may be that no detailed mitigation plan was drawn up. It is perfectly possible that that might have happened, for the very reason that these risks were so great that they could not have been mitigated. However, even if that were the case, surely there would have been box notes or communications in emails making all that clear between the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office, between UKSV and the Cabinet Office, and between Ministers and officials, yet we have seen nothing.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in addition to the concern he has expressed that there is no evidence of mitigations being put in place, there is a concern that there was not much time to do those mitigations between the point at which UKSV recommendations were received and the decision by the Foreign Office to grant vetting? There really was not much time for mitigations, as well as very little evidence that they were provided.

[Sir John Hayes]

That is true. Indeed, that might have been reflected in some of the messages that I have suggested to the Department that it might, even at this late stage, make available to our Committee—perhaps that is the most sensible thing given the terms of the Humble Address—and subsequently, in a redacted form, more widely. Even if it were true that because of the pace of the appointment, a full plan could not be drawn up, I find it inconceivable and—I would go as far as to say—unbelievable that there were no communications of any kind associated with the measures referred to by Sir Olly Robbins and Ian Collard.

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[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I start, as I must, with the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) for raising the testimony of Lisa Phillips and naming one of Epstein’s victims. Those victims have names, they may be listening to the debate and they will find this whole process retraumatising and painful again and again.

Everything that has happened seems to have been because of an ultimate boys’ club situation: a boys’ club that surrounded Epstein, a boys’ club that surrounded Mandelson and a boys’ club that was in No. 10. Even today we have been drawn into its vortex. I do not like the fact that we are still having to be part of it and still saying his name when he did such dreadful things to so many people. I also pay tribute to the women and girls who were abused and exploited by him and his associates. They deserve truth and accountability, and to know that public institutions have learned lessons. Their bravery in speaking out is why this House keeps returning to questions of standards, judgment and transparency.

I ask the House to stand back a bit and look at the Humble Address process. As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I have been following the process very closely. I join the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) in saying that I am not an enthusiast for the Humble Address process. I think that it should be used but I have questions about it.

I have been very critical of the appointment of Peter Mandelson from the moment that appointing him was even thought about—it should never have gone further than that—through the due diligence process, the vetting process and the final decision. My constituents expect Ministers to be held to the highest standards and when those standards fall short, they expect answers.

Some areas about which I have particular concerns have already been raised by Members during the debate. There need to be changes to the appointment system. This process tested that system to the limit. It was an extreme circumstance, with a new Government, a high-profile position, an appointment made very quickly and a rare political appointment to an ambassador role, but a system needs to be tested to the utmost for such a situation. In future, I hope the Foreign Affairs Committee will be given the opportunity to meet candidates who are being considered for political appointment. There may never be any more political appointments after this one, but if there are, they need to be made differently and we need to hear that that will happen.

I have questions about the due diligence process. I have asked officials whether it is a pass or fail process. Due diligence is just a part of the process and it cannot be failed, and I think that should be looked at. If there are enough red flags in the due diligence process, why would we go ahead with vetting? In this case, there were a couple of red flags: Epstein, and Russia and China. To me, those are pretty big red flags, so that part of the process should be looked at.

The Humble Address process is an important tool for the Opposition to gain transparency. It is an appeal to the King over the Heads of Government, once used for ceremonial messages but now more commonly used as a tool to gain information. In February, the Humble Address process was used for the publication of papers relating to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. When in opposition, the Labour party unsuccessfully requested Humble Addresses on the cost of the Rwanda plan and the asylum system and on the safety of school buildings, for example, and successfully asked for Humble Addresses on Brexit in 2018 and on Lebedev in 2022. It is a useful tool, but seeking answers is not the same as backing any process regardless of cost or consequence, and so far in this debate, there has been no mention of the cost—the financial cost, and the time cost to civil servants.

I would argue that this Humble Address has not been a good process—it has been disproportionate. The Humble Address was drafted so widely that it has become a catch-all, not a focused request for information, which is why many of us are finding the process very frustrating.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, and I agree with the case she is making. She is right that wide Humble Addresses are deleterious, both because there is an opportunity cost—while civil servants are looking at that, they are not looking at something else—and a real financial cost. However, does she agree that the right moment to push back on an excessively broad Humble Address is when it is being decided on? The Government have a majority; it is there so that the Government can get their way. Would it not have been better for them to have said on 4 February, “This is too broad. We will only agree to something narrower”?

[Fleur Anderson]

I will come to that point later in my argument. I hope that my speech today will be something we can learn from, to learn the lessons from this Humble Address and try to make future ones better.

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[Fleur Anderson]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention—it is helpful to understand what happens inside the process. It has to be between the person and the vetting officer, and they must not think that it will be shared further. That is absolutely at the heart of it.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Fleur Anderson]

I give way for the last time.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I am extremely grateful; the hon. Lady is being very generous with her time. I want to develop the point from a slightly different angle. What we are really interested in are the conclusions of the vetting process, not the material that leads to the conclusions. It is therefore entirely possible that we could give all the reassurances that she and the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) have made clear are important to those who contribute to the vetting process, but also make sure that, in the interests of disclosure on occasions such as this, the House can be clear about the conclusions of the vetting process without being told the raw information on which those conclusions are based.

[Fleur Anderson]

I thank the right hon. and learned Member. I have honestly enjoyed these interventions and I appreciate the spirit of dialogue in the House today. We are tackling a very difficult issue and we want to get it right.

I agree that the public need the outcome of the vetting: who was consulted, what risks were identified, what decisions were taken, whether a proper process was followed, and what on earth the mitigations were. The Cabinet Secretary or relevant permanent secretary can be called to a Select Committee to answer those questions directly, as the Foreign Affairs Committee has done. That is scrutiny, but publishing the raw documents is counterproductive.

To conclude, I remain appalled by, and very critical of, the Mandelson appointment. My constituents deserve full answers, and I await the documents being released by the Metropolitan police after its investigation, but we need to review this process that has cost so much, financially and in the opportunity cost. We also need to put some guardrails around the use of the Humble Address for any future requests, so that they stay focused on the issues that are meant to be investigated. We must make sure that when we demand accountability, we do it in a way that is effective, responsible and sustainable.

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[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.

Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Commons Chamber

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on the Government’s approach to redacting or withholding documents within scope of the Humble Address agreed by the House on 4 February 2026.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Darren Jones)]

As I have set out to this House on previous occasions, the Government are working to comply with the motion passed in February. I can reassure the House that this remains the case, and I can provide the following update today.

The Government confirmed before Prorogation that we had referred more than 300 documents to the Intelligence and Security Committee. At the time, that represented all the documents in scope of the motion where the Government believed that publication would be prejudicial to UK national security or international relations. The Government have repeatedly assessed all the documents we have collected to make sure that all of those that need to be referred to the ISC are referred to the Committee. As part of this quality control process, the Government identified a small number of further documents that we felt should be reviewed by the ISC, and we immediately submitted those documents to the Committee. As Friday’s statement from the Committee set out, it has now considered all those documents.

As I have previously said to the House, the Government will be publishing a second tranche of material. This is currently being finalised and will be one of the largest Government publications ever laid in this House. That is reflective of the breadth of the motion, and also the Government’s commitment to transparency in responding to it. It constitutes a very significant disclosure exercise involving sensitive material from across Government. The Government have taken seriously our obligations to comply with the Humble Address in full, while also upholding other public interest issues, such as our duty of care to junior staff. The Government have carried out this work according to a robust process, with assurance from an independent KC.

Given that the House is due to rise on Thursday, and given the length of the publication, the second tranche will now be published after Whitsun recess to give the House sufficient time to review the material and to be able to ask me and the Government questions. It could have been published this Thursday, but I felt that the House would have deemed that to be inappropriate, given that it will be such a significant publication. [Interruption.] To refer back to my previous comments, this will be the largest publication—other than, I think, the Chilcot inquiry report—ever published to the House.

When the Government publish the second tranche of documents, we will also publish a methodology confirming the process we have followed, and the basis on which content has been redacted will be clear from the published information. The targeted redactions made to the material, beyond those relevant to national security or international relations, have been made in line with clear precedent set by previous Administrations in responding to Humble Addresses.

As I set out to the House on 23 February, and again when we published the first tranche of material on 11 March, we have taken the normal approach to redacting junior officials’ names, contact details such as telephone numbers and email addresses, the personal data of third parties where that is not in scope of the motion, and, where relevant, legal professional privilege. That has been done using the principles set out in the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and in line with the ministerial code and the resolutions on ministerial accountability passed by both Houses in 1997. Those resolutions state:

“Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest, which should be decided in accordance with relevant statute”.

I am sure that Members across the House will recognise that there is no public interest in the Government publishing the names and contact details of junior officials or their telephone numbers.

[Darren Jones]

Forgive me, Mr Speaker. In that case, I will sit down and provide further detail in answer to questions from Members.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and I thank the Minister for what he has said. As you and the House know, the Intelligence and Security Committee has been considering redactions to documents on the grounds that, if unredacted, those documents may prejudice national security or international relations. It has become apparent to us that the Government also intend to redact documents for other reasons not specifically permitted in the Humble Address or, in some cases, to withhold documents altogether.

As the Minister says, the Government issued a list of further grounds on which they intended to redact along with the first tranche of documents that they published. Those grounds include email addresses, phone numbers and what is described as personal data. There is no mechanism for the House to confirm that those redactions are limited only to what is necessary, but I want to ask the Minister about material that the Government intend to withhold for yet further reasons, such as commercial confidentiality or to protect the monarch. The Government also intend to withhold some documents related to vetting in their entirety.

I should make it clear that my Committee has considerable sympathy with the substantive arguments that the Government may make for withholding information beyond that currently justified in the Humble Address. There are, for example, valid concerns about the disclosure of information given in a vetting process inhibiting future subjects of vetting, or those who are asked about them, from being as open and forthcoming as they need to be for vetting to be effective. However, we cannot accept that the Government are entitled to ignore, or unilaterally alter, the terms of the Humble Address.

Does the Minister accept that if the Government want to argue that the Humble Address is too broad as drafted and needs to be refined, they must come to the House and make that argument, and secure the House’s consent to any alteration? Does he further accept that without doing so, when the next set of documents is published with information withheld, the Government will not succeed in persuading the House or the wider world that this matter is closed? Finally, does he accept that if the Government took it upon themselves to redact or withhold information contrary to the terms of the Humble Address by which they agreed to be bound in February, that would be an issue not just of process, but of parliamentary sovereignty?

[Darren Jones]

In response to the questions from the right hon. and learned Gentleman about compliance with the Humble Address, I refer him to the statement that I have made previously in relation to the principles set out in legislation and the motions of the House.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman was, I think, asking me specifically about personal data that was collected as part of the security vetting process. As I think he suggested, the raw data that is collected as part of those investigations—perhaps relating to how much money someone has in a particular account, or with whom that person may have had a personal relationship in the past—would never be published, because if we did so, people would feel unable to answer those questions honestly and frankly in any UK security vetting investigation in the future, which would undermine the very basis of our national security system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. This is the first Government in a generation to take key services back into public ownership, to give rights and powers to workers, renters and the less fortunate, and to invest in public services and lift children out of poverty. As we face war on two fronts, we will do more. A stronger economy, stronger energy security, stronger on defence—that is the difference that this Government are making.

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

Q7. Many of us across this House worked hard to pass the Online Safety Act 2023, not because we thought it would be the last word on online safety, but because we believed it was an important step forward in making online platforms more accountable for the content on their services and for the algorithms that curate it. Can the Prime Minister reassure us that whatever his Government decide to do to restrict our young people’s access to social media will not be used as cover by social media companies to do less themselves to keep young people safer online?

[The Prime Minister]

I can give the right hon. and learned Gentleman that assurance. Those platform providers need to take responsibility. He will have noticed the fight that we had with Grok just a few months ago—disgusting images were being created on social media, and we took that on in a fight, which we won, across the House—as well as with chatbots. We need to build on the legislation that we have, and we definitely need more protection in general, particularly for children, but his point is valid: that should not take any responsibility away from those that provide the platforms in the first place.

Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response Update

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

My hon. Friend is exactly right to raise that question. The terms of reference have been confirmed with Adrian Fulford. That work has been started, and I expect it to complete in three to four weeks’ time.

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

I thank the Minister for his kind words about the hard work of the Intelligence and Security Committee. He will recognise and want to reflect with the House that we cannot work any faster than the speed at which the documents are given to us by the Government; the last of them, as he said, is being given to us today. The process will not be complete by Prorogation, as perhaps it should have been.

I would like to raise two points of concern in what the Minister has said to us this afternoon. The first is about redaction. He has made it clear that the Government intend to redact for reasons beyond the Humble Address exemption related to international relations and national security; he has described that as the names of junior officials, personal information or legally privileged information. On Thursday, I put it to the Leader of the House that the Government document describing their approach to redactions is substantially wider than that. It says:

“It may also be necessary for the government to make further redactions in future publications based on other public interest principles, including”—

but of course not limited to—

“commercially sensitive information.”

Will the Minister please, either today or in writing, explain clearly on what grounds the Government intend to redact these documents? If, as I suspect, some of the grounds on which the Government propose to redact are beyond the scope of the Humble Address, will he confirm that the Government must return to this House and seek consent so to do?

With your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, my final point is also about redaction. The Minister has said in his statement that the Government will not publish information that undermines or threatens our country’s national security or international relations. As he knows, in accordance with the process agreed, it will be for the Intelligence and Security Committee to determine those questions, not the Government—won’t it?

[Darren Jones]

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his question and confirm that the Government share the view that it is not the fault of the Intelligence and Security Committee that documents are not yet ready to be published; we hope that they will be ready shortly after the state opening of Parliament.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked me about redactions policy. I refer him to my earlier answer, but he did ask me some specific questions; I commit to seeking further advice on those and returning to the Dispatch Box. I hope that he and the House know that my intention, from the beginning of when I was asked to do this process, has been to ensure proper transparency with Parliament, which I and the Government take very seriously. If there is any suggestion otherwise, I will answer questions about that here at the Dispatch Box.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman’s second question has fallen out of my mind.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker. It was about whether the Minister would confirm that it will be the ISC that determines redactions on the basis of international relations and national security.

[Darren Jones]

I can confirm that the Government’s agreed process with the Committee stands.

Security Vetting

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Monday 20th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me deal with what is at the heart of that question, in relation to an unspoken message to civil servants. I do not accept that. It is simply not good enough, on a question of national security where the recommendation is that clearance be denied, for anyone, particularly senior civil servants, to do anything other than provide me with the relevant information. That is what should have happened in this case.

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

The Prime Minister has been very clear about his view of the urgency of his response since he learned of this vetting information, so I want to ask him about the events of last week. He will know that the Intelligence and Security Committee asked for any information relevant to vetting to be supplied to it in the first tranche of information we were to consider. We did not receive anything about vetting at that time.

The Prime Minister has now told us that he became aware on Tuesday evening of the information he has set out, but the Intelligence and Security Committee was not told about the existence of that information—information that the Prime Minister must have recognised was within the terms of the Humble Address and would need to be supplied to the ISC. We were not told by his officials about the existence of that information until Thursday, after its existence had been published in The Guardian newspaper. As such, I am bound to ask the Prime Minister this: if that information’s existence had not been disclosed by the press, would we have been told about it? If so, why did the ISC have to learn of its existence from The Guardian and not from the Government?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his question. The answer is yes, it would have been provided to the Committee, and as I think he acknowledged, it has now been provided to the Committee. The reason for the delay is that on Tuesday night, I found out simply that the recommendation had been made to deny clearance, and yet clearance had been given. I wanted to understand who gave that clearance, on what basis and who knew about it, so that I could update the House and obviously make the information available to the Committee. That is what I asked on Tuesday night my officials to do urgently, so that the full picture could be put before both the House and the Committee, and I will make sure that the full picture is put before the Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend and the others who attended the UN Commission on the Status of Women event. We are committed to halving violence against women and girls wherever it takes place, whether that is online, offline or on our streets. That includes banning deepfakes and tackling non-consensual intimate images and abusive, vile content online.

Following up from last week, I was deeply concerned that Travelodge cancelled its meeting with MPs. I want it to put that right and put it right swiftly.

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

Q2. In January last year, I raised with the Prime Minister the issue of inadequate and inaccessible compensation for those injured by covid vaccinations. The Prime Minister undertook to look into it, along with the Health Secretary, but I am afraid that more than a year later no significant progress has been made. I know that the Prime Minister and the Government recognise the risk that this issue poses to public confidence in mass vaccination—all the more important given the Prime Minister’s opening remarks in this session—and, indeed, the pain it has caused to those who have been injured or lost loved ones for doing only what their Government asked them to do. Will the Prime Minister please re-engage with this issue and ensure that his Government make swift progress in resolving it?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. and learned Member for raising that, and I acknowledge the question he asked me last year. I pay tribute to him and to Kate for her campaign. It is vital that we look closely at the rare and tragic cases where things went wrong. We must not fail to do so, so that we maintain confidence in our health service—important in relation to covid, of course, but, as he rightly points out, important today as well. We are committed to looking at reforms to the vaccine damage payment scheme and engaging with those affected to ensure that it meets their needs. We expect the fourth module of the covid inquiry to report next month, which will look specifically at the issue he has raised. I can reassure him that we will look at other recommendations very closely.

China: Foreign Interference Arrests

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Commons Chamber

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

As I hope the Minister would accept, the last trial of those accused of alleged espionage on behalf of China foundered—to put it at its mildest—because of a lack of shared understanding between the Crown Prosecution Service and the Government about the evidence that the Government could properly submit in support of that prosecution. I do not expect him to comment about the specifics of this case, but would he accept that it would be sensible for the Government now to ensure that as this matter develops, no such misunderstanding occurs, and that the relationship between the CPS and the Government is in the right place to ensure that evidential conversations are held early rather than late? Finally, would he accept that it would be sensible for the Intelligence and Security Committee to be kept up to date as this matter develops, given that we meet in private and the risks of prejudicing future prosecutions are lower in our case?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Member and share in much of the analysis that he has brought forward. Misunderstandings are never helpful and, under these circumstances, above all else we will ensure that there are no misunderstandings. He knows the disappointment that is felt across Government, and within the agencies and law enforcement, about where we got to back in the autumn. Of course, I give him an absolute assurance and commitment that we will do everything we need to do to ensure that the CPS is able to make a judgment; but, as he will understand, that has to be independent of Government. His point about the ISC is absolutely right. He will understand that events have moved incredibly quickly this morning and that we will want to take a moment later today to reflect on what needs to happen next, but I give him an absolute assurance that we want to work closely with the ISC as part of the process.

Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address Motion

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ward]

Yes, absolutely; that should be the guiding principle as we go through. The test at the end should be not only whether we have complied with the motion, which obviously we will, but whether it has helped to restore transparency and trust for the public.

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

I am grateful to you for calling me, Mr Speaker; I apologise for having missed the Minister’s opening remarks, but I did hear him endorse the integrity of the ISC. I entirely agree. It is important that I say from the Conservative Benches, just as my Committee colleague the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) said from the Liberal Democrat Benches, that we have full confidence in the integrity of the Labour members of the ISC to do the job that the House has commissioned us to do.

May I put to the Minister a point about the problems that the Government now have? It seems to me that the potential problems for them in complying with the Humble Address are: first, the volume of material that it may cover and, secondly, what the Metropolitan police wish us to hold for the purposes of their investigation. On the first point, does he agree that—as my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) put it to him—if the Government seek to moderate the terms of the Humble Address in any way to take account of the volume, they must come back to the House for its consent? On the material that may concern the Metropolitan police, does he agree that as it will not be made public if it is submitted to the ISC, there is no reason to slow down the referral of documents to my Committee simply because of concerns the police may have that if material is made public it may prejudice a future trial?

[Chris Ward]

I completely endorse the point that the right hon. and learned Gentleman makes about the independence and integrity of the ISC. He identifies two very fair points. I say that not as a reason not to comply; it is just the reality of the complexity of what we are dealing with. The volume is larger than in other Humble Addresses—that is not a complaint, but a statement of fact. However, there is no attempt to narrow the scope and no attempt to narrow the motion. The process that the Cabinet Office is going through is to define the scope and harness what falls within it.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman’s point about the Metropolitan police is well made. The Met and the Government both recognise that, ultimately, Parliament retains the right to publish material, but obviously a responsible Government will wish to act in a way that does not prejudice an ongoing live case, which we would all like to see reach a conclusion. We are working through these matters; they are complicated, but he raises them in exactly the right fashion.

Royal Assent

Lord Mandelson

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

I am glad that the hon. Lady agrees with us that the ISC should be used in this context. I am glad that there is agreement between her and me that those on the Government Front Bench should use the ISC to act in this way. I hope that other Labour Members will take the same view as that extremely experienced parliamentarian.

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

Will my hon. Friend give way on that?

[Alex Burghart]

I will give way one more time.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

Since my hon. Friend mentions the Intelligence and Security Committee, of which I am a member, may I put this to him? The purpose of the ISC is not to act as some filter to decide what should go to the rest of Parliament; it is to act on behalf of Parliament to consider material that Parliament, for good reason, cannot see. This is a motion about whether the Government should disclose all the relevant material to Parliament. In that context, is it not a perfectly usable and familiar mechanism for Parliament in circumstances such as these, by which the Government may disclose anything that they do not believe the whole Chamber can see to the Intelligence and Security Committee?

[Alex Burghart]

My right hon. and learned Friend speaks from a position of experience. He is entirely right; the House is fortunate to have the ISC and that is one of the functions that it can perform. The Government can have reassurance on national security and the House can have reassurance that no material is being kept from it that the Government might find embarrassing.

In his remarks, will the Paymaster General, who I know will have had nothing to do with this and who I know is a man of integrity, think seriously about the options of gisting and the role that the ISC can play in that and make sure that the Government are not marking their own homework? It is important that our constituents and this House have confidence in what the Government provide us with.

Before I hand over to other Members, let me move briefly on to the conduct of Lord Mandelson while he was our ambassador in Washington, which I think is relevant to our debate because it again exposes the Prime Minister’s lack of judgment in appointing him. There is obviously strong evidence to suggest that Mandelson behaved entirely inappropriately when he was Secretary of State under the last Labour Government, but equally big questions are now outstanding about what was happening in 2025 in Washington—as I said, this is relevant now. On 27 February 2025, the Prime Minister, while in Washington, visited the American data and AI company Palantir at its headquarters. The meeting did not appear in the Prime Minister’s register of visits; it only came to light later.

Palantir, we should remind ourselves, was a client of Global Counsel, the company in which Peter Mandelson had a commanding share. Later that year, Palantir received from this Government a £240 million deal. That deal was granted by direct award. Given the allegations now coming to light about Mandelson’s conduct, will the Minister assure the House that the Cabinet Secretary will review the circumstances around the award of that contract, and assure himself that there are no other such contracts, no other undisclosed meetings, and that the Government will go through all communications and messages that Mandelson sent out while he was ambassador, some of which we must assume, were sent to old business contacts, a potential few business contacts, and so on?

The Prime Minister knew that Peter Mandelson had maintained an unhealthy relationship with a man who was a convicted paedophile, and he appointed him to the role of ambassador anyway. Everybody in this House should be shocked by that. It must be concluded that had the Prime Minister been pressed on that point at the time, the appointment would not have been made, because the Prime Minister knew, his aides knew—but the appointment was made anyway. What else did he know? Only after this Humble Address, and only if the Government treat it in good faith, will we know that. I very much hope that we do not find that there are gaps in our security and vetting process. If there are, the Government will be able to fix them. I think it also likely that we will see reports that consistently raised concerns which were swept away. It will then be the duty of the Government to disclose who swept them away, and why. Ultimate responsibility must rest with the Prime Minister. It is time for him to take responsibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I think my hon. Friend and I have similar memories of that particular Parliament. To give an example, in the motion relating to Lebedev, we included the words,

“in a form which may contain redactions, but such redactions shall be solely for the purposes of national security.”

When I was involved in drafting Humble Addresses, I was very precise about that.

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

I am really grateful to the Minister for giving way. I know that he takes the role of the ISC very seriously, and I appreciate that he is trying to help the House with what he has just said. However, he will appreciate that the difficulty for the House is that it needs to decide what to do in relation to the motion before it today; Members on both sides will have to decide how they should cast their vote. Although there is some reassurance in the fact that the Intelligence and Security Committee will be involved in the Cabinet Secretary’s process, that will not be possible before we have to reach a decision on this motion.

The principle here is surely this: the whole House cannot see everything. I have sympathy with the Minister in relation to national security material and, I am bound to say, rather more sympathy than my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) with regard to potentially sensitive material on international relations. Following the comments made by Government Members, including the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), is not the answer today that those on the Opposition Front would accept their motion including the concept that, if material is sensitive, it would be supplied only to the ISC, not to the whole House, but that everything should be disclosed to the House either via that route or via a route to the whole House?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Beyond the deadline to amend the motion—a familiar situation that the right hon. and learned Member and I have found ourselves in before—I want to say something very clearly. I hope the House takes my previous answer on this as having been given in good faith—

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to disturb the debate in this way. I have tried to follow it as much as possible while I have been in and out of the Chamber with other duties. A manuscript amendment has been agreed, with, I take it, cross-party agreement. People will be making up their minds on how to vote on that amendment, and we therefore need clarity—those on the Front Bench could intervene now to clarify this for me. I want to get this absolutely clear. We are all going to vote for the material to be released; there is consensus on that. The difference is with regard to who interprets what is released. The manuscript amendment excepts elements of information that are prejudicial to national security and international relations,

“which shall instead be referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.”

I agree with that, but I would like clarity on whether the Intelligence and Security Committee will make the decision about publication, or—[Interruption.] Please listen. Will it make the decision or will it simply advise the Government and the final decision will rest with the Government? It would be helpful to have that clarified before we vote.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I recognise that the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) asks in order to assist the House. If it is of assistance, the answer to his question is that when the material is referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Committee, which is independent, will act independently: it will consider the material referred to it and then decide how to respond, what to refer to publicly and what not to refer to publicly. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Committee will act independently in this matter, as it does in all matters.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ward]

I will give way one more time to the former Attorney General, and then I will move on.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for giving way; I know he wants to move on to the motion, but just before he does so, I would be grateful for some reassurance from him on a point that was raised by my hon. Friend the shadow Minister. The Minister has moved the manuscript amendment. If the House passes this motion with the manuscript amendment, a volume of material will reach the Intelligence and Security Committee. He knows that our administrative resources are limited, and we do not know what volume of material may be coming our way. The House will expect us to do a thorough job and we will seek to do one, but can he reassure me, and the House, that the Committee will have the additional administrative resources, if it needs them, to consider that material properly?

[Chris Ward]

I thank the right and learned Member for his speech earlier and for his point. Absolutely, yes; I completely recognise the point he is making. A lot of documents are covered by this motion—that is not a complaint; it is an observation. The ISC has the authority and respect of this House, and it would need resources to go with this task. If that is agreed, we will ensure that it gets those resources in the usual way.

Chinese Embassy

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the vice-chair of the ISC.

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

As you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the House would expect, the Intelligence and Security Committee has investigated the security implications of this proposal, and specifically whether the intelligence community had sufficient opportunity to feed in any security concerns, and whether Ministers had the necessary information on which to base a decision. I want to quote directly from our conclusions, which represent the Committee’s unanimous view:

“On the basis of the evidence we have received, and having carefully reviewed the nuanced national security considerations, the Committee has concluded that, taken as a whole, the national security concerns that arise can be satisfactorily mitigated.”

I will say, though, that we have been concerned solely with the national security perspective, not with the other arguments for or against a new embassy.

It has proved more difficult than it should have been to get straightforward answers to our basic questions. The process in Government does not seem to be effectively co-ordinated, or as robust as would have been expected. In particular, there was a lack of clarity about the role that national security considerations play in planning decisions. We will take those matters up further with the Government, as I know the Minister would expect.

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and to all members of his Committee. Parliament entrusts the ISC with holding Government to account, and the ISC is able to do that in a way that other right hon. and hon. Members cannot. He made two key points. First, he shared the Committee’s analysis of the concerns expressed about national security. I hope that Members in all parts of the House listen carefully to what he says, and look carefully at the judgment that his Committee arrived at. Secondly, he made an important point about process, which I take seriously. I have no doubt that quite a lot can be learned from the process, and I am happy to talk with him and his Committee to identify the lessons that should be learned, and to ensure that we do things better next time.