Ambassador to the United States

Debate between Kemi Badenoch and Julian Lewis

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Julian Lewis]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have seen a rapid transformation from the Prince of Darkness into a grovelling Lord Yum Yum? One has to ask, why was the British Prime Minister surprised? Had he never heard the tale of the turtle and the scorpion that meet at the side of the river? Should the Prime Minister not have realised that the poor old scorpion simply cannot help what is in its nature?

[Mrs Badenoch]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. The story is that of the frog and the scorpion, and it is one of my favourite childhood stories. Everyone knew what Lord Mandelson had been up to. It is simply not tenable for any Member on the Government Benches to hold the line on this one, burying their heads in the sand and hoping that it goes away, least of all the Prime Minister.

We now know that the Prime Minister was aware of the compromising emails last Wednesday at Prime Minister’s questions, yet he came to the House and said that he had confidence in his ambassador. Many on the Labour Benches cheered, but now they are all looking at their phones, and most of them do not have the courage to look me in the eye. They were cheering last week, and now they are full of shame. [Interruption.] Sorry, are they proud? No, they are not. I will continue.

Why on earth did the Prime Minister do that? At any point did he ask his staff what more information might surface? That morning Lord Mandelson was saying that more information would surface. Did the Prime Minister receive a briefing about that ahead of Prime Minister’s questions? It is inconceivable that he did not. Ministers are now claiming that new information subsequently came to light—new information that they did not have. The story is all mixed and messed up, and they know it. What information appeared that was not in the original vetting? We would like to hear that when the Minister responds.

There are still more questions to answer. When did the Prime Minister’s chief of staff speak with Peter Mandelson last week, and what did they discuss? Do the Government have the courage to tell us that? We are told that Morgan McSweeney spent hours on the phone to the ambassador at the same time that Lord Mandelson was dodging calls from the Foreign Office. What were they talking about?

Those are questions about what happened just last week, but how did all this come to happen last year? The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee has asked some excellent questions. But I ask the Minister this: what led to Lord Mandelson’s appointment in the first place? How was it that a man with known links to a child sex offender came to be appointed?