{"id":407586,"date":"2026-02-04T15:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T15:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/407586\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T15:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T15:30:07","slug":"labour-mps-say-they-will-vote-down-plan-to-limit-mandelson-disclosures-peter-mandelson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/407586\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour MPs say they will vote down plan to limit Mandelson disclosures | Peter Mandelson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Labour MPs have warned they will vote down a government amendment to limit the disclosures about Peter Mandelson\u2019s appointment as ambassador to the US, with government sources saying they may be forced to change their own amendment.<\/p>\n

The former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner<\/a> and the chair of the Treasury select committee, Meg Hillier, have publicly asked the government to allow the intelligence and security committee (ISC) to review the documents before public disclosure.<\/p>\n

MPs said they believed that anger was so vast among the parliamentary party that it posed a significant threat to Keir Starmer\u2019s premiership. \u201cThis is Boris and Chris Pincher on steroids,\u201d one senior Labour figure said, referring to the scandal that brought down Boris Johnson.<\/p>\n

No 10 had been intending to release documents later on Wednesday, but Starmer\u2019s spokesperson said that had been complicated after contact from the Metropolitan police.<\/p>\n

Police have launched a criminal investigation into whether there had been misconduct in a public office over sensitive government documents that appeared to have been forwarded from Mandelson to Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Conservatives have forced a vote on the release of the documents, and the government has said it will release the vetting process for Mandelson\u2019s appointment, which they claim will show he lied about his relationship with the convicted child sex offender.<\/p>\n

But the government\u2019s amendment would mean the cabinet secretary could refuse to disclose documents that prejudiced national security or international relations \u2013 an exemption that many MPs have told the Guardian they believe is too broad.<\/p>\n

Instead Rayner and Hillier have said the government should allow the select committee to have oversight over what is disclosed.<\/p>\n

Angela Rayner said the government needed to go further. Photograph: HoC<\/p>\n

Questioned repeatedly at prime minister\u2019s questions, Starmer said Mandelson had \u201cbetrayed our country\u201d in his dealings with the disgraced financier.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe lied repeatedly to my team, when asked about his relationship with Epstein before and during his tenure as ambassador,\u201d the prime minister said. \u201cI regret appointing him. If I knew then what I know now, he would never been anywhere near government.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make sure this house sees the full documentation, so it will see for itself the extent to which, time and time again, Mandelson completely misrepresented the extent of his relationship with Epstein, and lied throughout the process, including in response to the due diligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Conservative-led debate, Rayner said the government needed to go further. \u201cGiven the public disgust and the sickening behaviour of Peter Mandelson and the importance of transparency \u2026 should the ISC not have the same role now [as in relation to a previous humble address] in keeping public confidence in the process?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Cabinet Office minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds, said he would consider the changes. \u201cI am hearing what the house is saying and I will take that point away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ministers are willing to rewrite the government\u2019s amendment, insiders say, and to give the intelligence and security committee a role in deciding what gets published.<\/p>\n

MPs from across the house used the debate to call for the ISC to take charge of those decisions rather than the cabinet secretary.<\/p>\n

Officials say the prime minister is willing to rewrite his amendment, but wants to ensure the process does not become a \u201cparty political\u201d one that the Conservatives use to damage the government further.<\/p>\n

The chair of the ISC is Kevan Jones, a Labour<\/a> peer and former defence minister. The committee is made up of a mix of MPs and peers from different parties, with Labour the most well represented.<\/p>\n

Downing Street officials said that Mandelson had misrepresented his relationship with Epstein \u201ctime and time again\u201d – both directly to the prime minister and his team.<\/p>\n

Peter Mandelson underwent a two-step vetting process before arriving in Washington as an ambassador. Photograph: Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Mandelson underwent a two-step vetting process. The first was \u201cdue diligence\u201d by the Cabinet Office\u2019s propriety and ethics team, which sent a document to No 10 with outstanding questions before his appointment was made in late 2024.<\/p>\n

This consisted of only information already in the public domain, including that Mandelson had stayed overnight at Epstein\u2019s house and had an ongoing friendship with him post-conviction and release.<\/p>\n

The Guardian understands that Starmer or Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff, questioned Mandelson on the allegations before his appointment themselves. However, they do not appear to have pushed for any further information and were satisfied with his answers at the time.<\/p>\n

After the appointment, but before Mandelson went to Washington, he underwent a second, more secretive part of the process. This was deep vetting (DV) in which officials asked questions about sensitive issues including finances, business records, sexual history, foreign travel and personal relationships.<\/p>\n

Its aim was to establish whether he was being honest about his past, and if not, could he be susceptible to coercion.<\/p>\n

At no point in the DV process, which is never made public, was the information shared with any politicians. Instead, it provided a binary decision, with mitigations in place for any areas of concern.<\/p>\n

As Mandelson ended up in Washington, it is assumed the DV process gave him the green light. It is unclear whether any mitigations were put in place. Despite that, No 10 said on Wednesday it had faith in the vetting process.<\/p>\n

Downing Street suggested the UK had not asked the US Department of Justice to see the Epstein documents before the appointment, repeatedly dodging questions on whether a request was made to view documents related to Mandelson before they were published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labour MPs have warned they will vote down a government amendment to limit the disclosures about Peter Mandelson\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-407586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}