‘It beggars belief’: Starmer insists he was not told about Mandelson’s vetting fail
Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he was not told that Lord Peter Mandelson failed a security vetting before telling MPs that “due process” around his appointment as US ambassador was followed.
Starmer told MPs on Monday that he asked Whitehall officials to review whether due process was followed last September on whether the security vetting for Mandelson was adhered to, and that he sent the Foreign Office multiple questions on the former Labour veteran’s vetting process.
His statement to MPs came days after the top Foreign Office chief Sir Olly Robbins was sacked over not informing ministers about the result of the security vetting, raising questions over Starmer’s leadership and whether appropriate codes of conduct were followed.
Former Cabinet secretary Simon Case told the Prime Minister that Mandelson should face “necessary security clearances” before being confirmed as the UK’s ambassador in Washington while his national security adviser questioned why the process was “weirdly rushed”.
“I do not accept that I could not have been told about the recommendation before Peter Mandelson took up his post,” Starmer said.
“I absolutely do not accept that the then cabinet secretary [Chris Wormald] — an official, not a politician — when carrying out his review could not have been told that UKSV [UK Security Vetting] recommended that Peter Mandelson should be denied developed vetting clearance.”
Tory MPs erupted in laughter after Starmer said that parliamentarians would “find these facts to be incredible”.
Starmer continued: “To that I can only say they are right. It beggars belief that throughout this timeline officials in the Foreign Office saw fit to withhold information from senior ministers.”
Starmer added that Case’s advice was addressed by Wormald in a review of the process last year.
The Prime Minister added: “If I had been told that Mandelson had not been given clearance on security vetting, I would not have appointed [him]. A deliberate decision was taken to withhold that material from me. It wasn’t a lack of asking, it wasn’t oversight. It was a decision taken not to share that information on repeated occasions.”
Starmer grilled by MPs
Several MPs, including Labour’s Stella Creasy and Diane Abbott, the Mother of the House, criticised the Prime Minister’s handling of the isssue.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey also used a question to call for Starmer’s resignation while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch echoed Starmer’s attacks on former Prime Minister Boris Johnson on whether there is “one rule for him and another for everyone else”.
“At every turn, with every explanation, the government story has become murkier and more contradictory,” Badenoch said.
“The prime minister has thrown his staff and his officials under the bus. Yet this is a man who once said, ‘I will carry the can for the mistakes of any organisation I lead’.”
Earlier on Monday, Starmer’s spokesman appeared to suggest that the Prime Minister now concedes he misled parliament on the vetting process, though emphasises that he did not deliberately do so.
“The prime minister would never knowingly mislead parliament or the public,” the spokesman said.
“He’s clear, though, that this information should have been provided to Parliament. It should have been provided to him, it should have been provided to other government ministers.”
Starmer decries ‘staggering’ Whitehall decision
The debacle around Mandelson hinges on whether the bureaucratic procedures within government were followed. The former US ambassador was first subject to a due diligence report by civil servants based on publicly available information while a separate branch of the Cabinet Office later conducted a security vetting process.
This second critical vetting process was completed after Mandelson was already in his post in Washington DC. The Guardian reported last week that he failed the security vetting, with ministers stating in the last few days that they were never made aware of its details.
Case’s advice on the appointment process will raise questions over whether Starmer’s team attempted to fast-track the appointment. Some civil servants have defended Robbins’ apparent decision to allow Mandelson to stay in his job despite vetting alerts being flagged.
Robbins has reportedly consulted legal advisers over the terms of his sacking.
The government separately published a document suggesting that the law did not prevent him from informing Starmer about the security vetting process. Former deputy prime minister and current justice secretary David Lammy said Starmer would not have kept Mandelson in his position if he had known about the result of the security vetting.
“Taking a step back, I think anybody who’s been following this case or indeed any case would find it completely staggering that no ministers, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, were informed that the UK Security vetting had recommended against approving Peter Mandelson,” the Prime Minister’s spokesman said.
Robbins will appear before an MP committee to speak about the Whitehall crisis on Tuesday.