Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Darren Jones

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[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

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Darren Jones

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.

Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response Update

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Darren Jones

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.

Investment Security Unit: Scrutiny

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Darren Jones

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

I am in the unusual circumstance, as a member of the Opposition, of having to put the Government line to my right hon. Friend. I merely recognise, as he will know from our extensive conversations, that it has always been the case, in line with the Osmotherly rules for Select Committees, that we do not have a statutory power to summon information, as he does on the Intelligence and Security Committee, but that there is a presumption that information will be shared with us. He will know that, if that information is not exchanged in a timely and ready fashion for us to do our work, the Committee will escalate those issues via the Committee, the usual channels or on the Floor of the House. As to my right hon. Friend’s question on where the unit resides, it resides in the Cabinet Office. I assume it is within the National Security Secretariat. I think he is therefore suggesting that that means the ISC has oversight. I know full well that he and his colleagues will make use of their powers to try to request information from the Government in their work.

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

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his statement and recognise that a huge amount of work has gone into it, including with the Government. I thank him for the engagement he has had with my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), the Chairman of the ISC, of which I, too, am a member. I know that my right hon. Friend would be here if he could be.

If I may, I will put to the hon. Gentleman what the problem with the arrangement might be. He has said already that arrangements are to be made for the viewing of material that would normally be at a higher classification than members of his Committee would be able to see, but those arrangements as set out in the memorandum are clearly described as “exceptional”. Is it not the case that the sub-committee of his Committee that he will set up to deal with this material is likely to deal with that sort of classified material on a routine basis? Is there not an advantage in having staff and members of a committee who are used to dealing with this type of material? Through no fault of their own, neither his Committee nor its staff will be used to that.

[Darren Jones]

There is an interesting question there, to which none of us knows the answer: how routine will it be for us to have to look at either commercially sensitive or national security-sensitive information about individual transactions? From our study visit to the United States, it seemed that most of the transactions were operationalised, and had not become political or been escalated to a committee level, because the issues were seen to be sensible, small or below de minimis thresholds.

There will be examples where there is more political interest in a particular transaction. In the past year, for example, where the 2021 Act has been operational, the vast majority of the notifications that my Committee has received have not warranted our having to look at the national security information. For some cases, such as Newport Wafer Fab, the industrial implications of that decision will warrant our looking at that information in more detail. Under this memorandum of understanding, we will request that information when we are permitted to do so—after the period of judicial review and appeal has closed—so that we may understand whether the Act is being used in the way it is supposed to be used, without deterring investment in the interests of workers and business in this country.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman refers to staff. As I said in my statement, the House has kindly provided the Committee with additional staff, who are national security specialists and have a range of security clearances. In the MOU, there are procedures and processes for the handling, holding, storage and use of information, both between my Committee and my Clerks, but also where necessary within Government facilities.