Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

Debate between Scott Arthur and David Davis

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[David Davis]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. Indeed, it is worse than that, because this post is the nexus of the entire Five Eyes intelligence co-operation. Our service is not like that of the Americans. In the American embassy, the CIA is freestanding; the ambassador does not matter. In our service, the ambassador runs the local secret service element, as it were, so he or she is entirely responsible and has entire access. That is an issue with the Americans in particular, because they are incredibly sensitive about the corruption, or the undermining in any way, of the security of that arrangement, so we could actually have put the whole Five Eyes co-operation arrangement at risk—but my right hon. Friend has led me off on a completely different tangent.

I come back to the general point. Sir Philip Barton was asked this morning about delay, attitude and pressure; when asked at the Foreign Affairs Committee if he recalled “any dismissiveness in No. 10 about the importance” of Mandelson’s vetting, Sir Philip—Sir Olly Robbins’ predecessor—described No. 10 as “uninterested” in his security clearance. The evidence that Sir Olly Robbins gave was that, throughout January, there was “constant pressure” and an “atmosphere of constant chasing”. Yesterday, Ian Collard, the former head of the Foreign Office security team, corroborated Sir Olly Robbins’s account. Just this morning, again, Sir Philip Barton repeatedly emphasised that there was pressure to secure Mandelson’s vetting clearance within a “very compressed timescale”, yet the Prime Minister told this House only a week ago that “no pressure existed whatsoever”. If that was the only issue, it would justify being referred to the Committee of Privileges—in order to resolve what the exact truth was—but it was not the only issue. Plainly, if the Foreign Office is right, the Prime Minister is wrong—and, on that timetable, actually, deliberately wrong.

Let us take some other occasions. On 4 February this year, the Prime Minister gave an unambiguous impression, when asked about Epstein’s coverage in the security clearance, that he had seen Peter Mandelson’s security vetting file, but in April he told the House that on 14 April he

“found out for the first time”

that Mandelson had been granted

“developed vetting clearance, against the specific recommendation of the United Kingdom Security Vetting that developed vetting clearance should be denied.”—[Official Report, 20 April 2026; Vol. 784, c. 23.]

Those two statements are incompatible—again, a free-standing failure of the rules.

What is more, that chaotic clash of opinions reinforces the impression that, far from “following due process”, as the Prime Minister has maintained on a number of occasions, No. 10 was effectively making it up as it went along. As we have already heard from the Leader of the Opposition, the then Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, issued explicit advice on 11 November 2024: secure the

“necessary security clearances…before confirming your choice.”

That was reinforced this morning by Sir Philip Barton, who said of the correct process:

“The normal order is vetting and then announcement.”

Normal due process was clear, but the Prime Minister did the opposite. Claims that this was normal defy common sense.

For career ambassadors, developed vetting happens for every new post. If someone goes to become the ambassador in Tehran, they are DV-ed. If they then go to become ambassador in Washington, they are DV-ed again—but at that point, the vetting is an update, so it is lower risk. By definition, our ambassadors are, generally speaking, low-risk security personnel anyway. That is plainly not the case for a high-risk figure like Peter Mandelson. Indeed, frankly, it is hard to imagine a higher-risk appointment to a post that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) said, is of the utmost sensitivity. To appoint first and vet later is not due process, and it is certainly not prudent. It is a gamble with national security and a risk to our single most important alliance.

There are three instances where the Prime Minister made questionable statements: his insistence that there was no pressure, when there evidently was; the two versions he gave of when he saw the vetting file; and his assertion that due process was followed, when it clearly was at odds with the process described by both the Cabinet Secretary and the permanent secretary for the Foreign Office.

The Prime Minister made a deeply questionable decision. We cannot know for certain whether it was due to cronyism, a misunderstanding of the role or excessive leniency towards a member of his own party—something he would never have tolerated, and quite rightly, from any other party. Whatever the explanation, the conclusion is unavoidable: the decision was wrong. To implement it, established procedures were bent out of shape. The civil service was placed under extreme pressure to deliver outcomes that sat on the margins of propriety. When concerns were raised, they were not confronted but sidestepped. As usual in No. 10, an attempt was made to place the blame on somebody else.

Even in this week’s New Statesman, which is traditionally a banner carrier for the Prime Minister, there is a quote—I think it is in Tom McTague’s article—from a senior Government official who goes on at length against the Prime Minister and ends by saying:

“Ask Chris. Ask Sue. Ask Morgan. Ask Olly. He will say he takes responsibility, but then he makes everyone else pay.”

That is what we are looking at.

Rather than addressing concerns directly, the Prime Minister proceeded regardless, and only later sought to justify his decision with answers that were, I am afraid, frequently misleading. As a former Director of Public Prosecutions, he should have known better. What began as a mistake evolved into something more serious. A failure turned into a defence, a problem became a pattern and, ultimately, the situation now looks like a cover-up. But as we have already heard from my Front Benchers and a number of other speakers, today is not about determining guilt; it is about determining whether there is a case to answer. Finding the truth and adjudicating guilt is the task of the Committee of Privileges, which has both the time and the access required to examine the evidence in full.

Much has been made of Boris Johnson’s appearance before the Committee of Privileges, and I am famously a fan of Boris Johnson. When a similar motion was brought to this House on whether the matter should go to that Committee, it was clearly recognised at the time that we were not delivering a verdict, but deciding whether there was a case to be answered. At the time, I made it very plain to our Whips Office that I would not countenance any attempt to block a proper investigation into a House of Commons matter. I was by no means alone; a number of other colleagues made the same argument. As a result, the Government of the day accepted that it was a House of Commons matter. It is improper for the Government to intervene in such a matter to try to guide the House. Accordingly, the motion passed without a Whip, and without a Division. Interestingly, the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) thought otherwise.

[Dr Arthur]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Davis]

In a debate about misleading the House, it makes me wonder when Members of this House accuse others of not voting on a motion that did not lead to a vote, so I will not take an intervention. I will certainly not take an intervention from the hon. Gentleman. He is a noise maker, not a truth issuer.

On the evidence before us today—contradictions, procedural failures and an emerging pattern of conduct—there is plainly a case for referral. Where doubt exists, it should be resolved through proper scrutiny. Where a case exists, it should be tested. This case should go to the Committee of Privileges, and go today.

Peter Mandelson: Government Appointment

Debate between Scott Arthur and David Davis

Tuesday 21st April 2026 Commons Chamber

[David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)]

Our ambassador in Washington stands at the nexus of the Five Eyes, with more classified intelligence crossing his desk than crosses the desks of most Cabinet Ministers. It is obviously one of the most important appointments the Prime Minister makes, but it is also one of the most sensitive. A security failure in that post could seriously jeopardise the Five Eyes relationship—the Americans are notoriously twitchy about security—so the appointee’s conduct before the appointment must be beyond reproach and their trustworthiness must be impeccable.

One of our best ambassadors, Karen Pierce, was already in place. She was highly regarded by the State Department and the White House; indeed—contrary to what the Lib Dem leader said—so much so that President Trump called the Prime Minister to urge him to keep Pierce while expressing concern about Mandelson in one of three calls from the White House on her behalf and against him. She was a high-class, high-performance, zero-risk choice. Against that, we had the London establishment’s view that Mandelson’s amoral dark arts would somehow make him a good ambassador—a view typically espoused by people with no idea of what makes a good ambassador.

Among the questions before us in assessing the Prime Minister’s judgment is whether Mandelson was a better appointment than Karen Pierce and, if so, whether the benefit of that appointment was sufficient to outweigh the clear risks. Of course, the answer to both those questions is an emphatic no. It was abundantly clear to anyone taking that decision that he was a significant security risk. He was a man who had twice been forced to resign from Government and who had known links to a paedophile.

Mandelson was also closely associated with the Russian oligarch Deripaska, a man who had been responsible for the deaths of 100 people and was personally responsible for murders and extortion. Mr Mandelson—Lord Mandelson, as he was then—spent weekends with Deripaska in his dacha and in Moscow. He did this at weekends, of course, because the EU does not record where its commissioners are at the weekend. That is the sort of background we are talking about.

As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), the leader of my party, Mandelson was also a non-executive director of Sistema, a Russian arms dealing company led by a Putin ally. When he stood down from his role at Sistema, he took a large shareholding, which he kept for some time. All of this is in the public domain. It was in the public domain before Mandelson was appointed. There were links to China, too. I can list them over and over again: TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese state; and Shein, which is based on Uyghur forced labour. Of course, he also called time and again for closer Anglo-Chinese relationships.

When appointments such as these are made, it is not a judgment beyond reasonable doubt. It is not even a judgment based on the balance of probabilities. It is a judgment on significant risk. Are we going to take a significant risk with the Five Eyes relationship? Of course we are not. It should be clear, on public data alone, that this man is, or was, a significant risk. Indeed, the propriety and ethics team in the Cabinet Office flagged to No. 10 most of the issues I have just described before this process started.

Mr Speaker, forgive me for being so direct, but we should remember that Peter Mandelson is a man who has proven that he is greedy for money, greedy for glamour, greedy for status and greedy for power, and that he is willing to break the rules to get them. That is the key point: he is willing to break the rules to get them. Such a man is a classic security risk in the face of Russian or Chinese kompromat, not to mention the risk posed by his known involvement with Epstein.

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

I am not in the Peter Mandelson fan club—I am old enough to remember his first life in government—but this morning we heard that UKVS had judged him to be a borderline risk and that officials thought that that risk could be managed. That is quite different from what the right hon. Gentleman is outlining.

[David Davis]

That is the public information. If the hon. Gentleman wants to get into the argument between UKVS, which we are now told was saying the risk was marginal, and No. 10, who are saying that the strike-off is a red, he can do that. I am talking about public data, and about what we should know before we start the process—

[Dr Arthur]

rose—

[David Davis]

No, no, the hon. Gentleman has had his go. Sit down.

No. 10 has chosen to ignore these things, and that is critical. We have heard about the pressure that was being put on the Foreign Office over and over again. Forgive me again, Mr Speaker, for this direct quote, because it is obscene. The Select Committee Chairman recounted today how Morgan McSweeney called Sir Olly’s predecessor and told him to, “Just fucking approve it.” Speaking in the Committee, Sir Olly made it clear that he was under “constant pressure” in an “atmosphere of constant chasing”. Why? We already know that it was not because Mandelson was a materially better candidate than Karen Pierce, the brilliant, well-established, highly regarded incumbent with excellent connections to the White House. It was because Mandelson was a leading member of the new Labour aristocracy, full stop. It was not talent, but connection. It was not even in the national interest. Plainly it was not even in the Labour interest. It was in the interest of a Labour clique.

Mandelson’s appointment was a decision made with complete disregard for the known risks, which explains the Prime Minister’s lack of curiosity about the vetting. It was not a lack of curiosity; he did not ask because he did not want to know. The former Cabinet Secretary warned the Prime Minister that he should secure Mandelson’s security clearance before any appointment. He was warned on 11 December 2024 by the Cabinet Office about Mandelson’s public past. On 11 September last year, No. 10 was asked by a journalist whether Mandelson had failed developed vetting. No. 10 knew. It is as plain as a pikestaff.

So where do we go from here? We have a Prime Minister and a Government in power who are making decisions in the interests of their own clique within their party, and in doing so they are putting the United Kingdom at explicit risk. The Prime Minister should resign.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Scott Arthur and David Davis

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will try to keep it brief and stick with procedure.

The decision we are taking today must be, for most Members, one of the most painful decisions. It certainly is for me. I am someone who has changed his position. I am a believer in the sanctity of life, but I am also an antagonist to torture and misery at the end of life. Accordingly, I intend to vote for the Bill on Second Reading. I say to those who have made procedural comments that Second Reading is a point of principle, not a point of conclusion. I have changed my position because since the scandal of Dr Shipman and the murders he carried out, the behaviour of the health service has changed. I have witnessed, with constituents in particular, any number of people who have died slowly and in agony beyond the reach of palliative care—the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) made the point brilliantly—so that no matter how well we do it, we cannot fix that problem.

Secondly, I am going to disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse): it is not insulting to critique what others who have tried this have done. The countries that have tried this provide a wide range of examples and outcomes. If on Third Reading I think that the outcome we are heading towards is Belgium, I will vote against; and if the outcome is Canada, I will probably vote against. If it is Australia, I will vote in favour. That is what the next stage of this process is about.

I say to both the Bill’s sponsors that it has a number of areas that they know I think they have to put right—about a dozen, in truth.

[Dr Arthur]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Davis]

I am afraid not, as I have only five minutes.

I will pick one of those areas, as it is technical and awkward. Clause 4(2) appears to give doctors the right to initiate the process. But after the “Do not resuscitate” scandal during the covid crisis, I do not want that at any price—I do not want the state initiating this process. That is critical for me. I am really making the point that the decision on Second Reading is about principle, not outcome.

The hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) has said that she will work hard to make the Committee work. I am sure she will, and she may succeed. But I say this to the Government. I understand perfectly well that they are trying to maintain a route of strict neutrality, but there is a distinction between neutrality and responsibility. They need to focus on responsibility. This Bill is more important than most of the Bills in their manifesto; I am not trying to be rude. Is the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) here? He got mobbed over breakfast by people talking about this. More people in the Dog and Duck care about this than they do about most other things that we are doing, so it deserves four days on Report in Government time over the course of several weeks.

We do not need a royal commission. The House can do this, but it needs to be given the option. I say to the Government that the path of responsibility is to give us the time to get this right. If we get it right, it will be one of the things that we can be proudest of in the coming years. I reiterate that I want the Bill to succeed. It is more important than most Bills that we handle. It cannot be dealt with in five hours here and a few hours in Committee. I will vote for it today, but I want the Government to help me be able to vote for a good Bill at the end.