Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address

Debate between Kirsty Blackman and Darren Jones

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

If the right hon. Member will forgive me, I have noted that question from earlier in the debate, and I will come to it in a grouping shortly.

I note the comments and questions today from Members on the process that officials have led to support the Government in responding to the Humble Address. As I have said each time I have been at the Dispatch Box, the Government have taken their obligations to comply with the Humble Address seriously and, in their view, have done so in full.

I hear the calls of some Members for the Government to provide further detail on Peter Mandelson’s vetting. As I told the House on Monday, we have shared the vetting summary and recommendation with the Intelligence and Security Committee. However, the vetting inputs collected as part of those investigations would never be published, because if the Government did so, people would feel unable to answer those questions honestly and frankly in any UK Security Vetting investigation in the future—a point that was made by the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin), who has been through that process. That would undermine our national security—not just in this instance, but the very basis of the national security system itself. It would have far-reaching impacts that no responsible Government rightly should entertain.

On that basis, I welcome the comments from the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Lord Beamish, on Monday night. He said that he

“agrees with the Government that the larger vetting documents shouldn’t be released to the Committee”

because of the potential impact on the vetting system. The former National Security Adviser, Lord Sedwill, wrote in a letter published in The Times today that

“the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has seen a summary of the issues that vetting inevitably raised. That should be sufficient for Parliament to judge the Prime Minister’s handling of this episode. Any Humble Address requiring disclosure of Lord Mandelson’s detailed submissions or vetting file would be a serious mistake.”

In the other place yesterday, Baroness Manningham-Buller, the former director general of MI5, said:

“I know that security vetting is very detailed—I have been subjected to it many times myself. It goes to your school, education, employers and friends, and people speak frankly. If for one moment they felt it was going to be published, security vetting designed to protect the most secret information would be of little value. Whatever else we do, we must hold on to that. However tempting it would be, for whatever reason, to know the full contents, they must not be revealed. I am talking not about this case but about a general principle.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 June 2026; Vol. 856, c. 764.]

I hear the arguments put by right hon. and hon. Members in the House today, but I do say that not just the Government’s position, but the advice from the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, a former National Security Adviser and a former director general of MI5 should be taken seriously.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I have been here through the debate and not one person has asked for all that information to be published—not one. People have been asking for the summary at the end, the outcome. Did it say “Red—he should not be granted clearance”?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones]

Again, I do not know which documents the Metropolitan police have, so I cannot speak to them specifically, but I share the sentiment of the right hon. Gentleman’s point.

The shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster asked me to confirm that there was a leak inquiry under way in relation to what appears to be information from UKSV being in the hands of Guardian journalists. I can confirm that that leak inquiry is under way but has not yet concluded.

Questions of judgment and due diligence have been put to me. I have already answered the point about the follow-up questions to the due diligence report and can only reiterate to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom), the words of the Prime Minister when he said that he regrets the appointment and has apologised for it.

The deputy Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), made the helpful suggestion that we should think about codifying the precedent on which the Government rely when making redactions for the future. I commit to taking that away and taking advice, not least on what that might mean in terms of House business and Government business.

My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) made some interesting points about how Humble Addresses may be used in the future, given that the House seems to have decided that it wants to use them more often than has been the case in the past. I was then asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) to confirm the Government’s continued commitment to the duty of candour legislation, which I can confirm. As he knows, there have been discussions with families and others about refining some of the final points in that legislation. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) asked me about freedom of information requests, and I commit to taking that question away and asking officials to try to respond as promptly as possible.

As the Prime Minister has set out, there are clearly significant lessons to be learned from the issues that arose from Peter Mandelson’s appointment, so while the Government consider that they have now duly discharged their obligations in respect of the Humble Address, they will none the less continue work on a number of important areas. Those include our commitment to bring forward legislation to ensure that peerages can be removed from disgraced peers, noting that Peter Mandelson has already been removed from the list of Privy Counsellors, and changing the process for direct ministerial appointments so that due diligence and national security vetting must take place prior to announcement.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I was expecting and hoping that the Minister would come on to Morgan McSweeney’s messages, which were asked about by the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and be clear about whether those messages exist and where they are. If they are with the Metropolitan police, for example, will the Minister commit to going to the police and asking if he can tell us that those messages exist?

[Darren Jones]

I say politely to the hon. Lady that I have already answered all of those questions.

The Government will continue their review with Sir Adrian Fulford, looking at recommendations for the national security vetting system arising from the lessons of the Peter Mandelson case. We are ordering an examination of any security concerns raised during Peter Mandelson’s tenure as ambassador, which the Government Security Group in the Cabinet Office is now taking forward. We are commissioning an independent review of how non-corporate communications channels, including WhatsApp, are used in Government. In addition, the Cabinet Secretary has written to all heads of department to clarify the rules on record keeping and ensure they are being properly applied across Government. The Government have also noted the Intelligence and Security Committee’s comments on the management of sensitive information; I share those concerns, and have expressed them at the Dispatch Box. The Government are committed to raising information security standards, and will take further action on this issue.

As I have committed to previously, I will return to the House to update it on the progress of this work in due course, but on the basis of my statements today and on Monday this week, the Government now consider that they have duly discharged their obligations in respect of the Humble Address. I thank the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, and right hon. and hon. Members for their work on this matter and their contributions to today’s debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Government’s response to the House’s humble Address of 4 February 2026.