{"id":409199,"date":"2026-02-05T11:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T11:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/409199\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T11:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T11:47:07","slug":"mandelson-files-will-be-published-even-if-embarrassing-to-no-10-says-isc-chair-peter-mandelson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/409199\/","title":{"rendered":"Mandelson files will be published even if embarrassing to No 10, says ISC chair | Peter Mandelson"},"content":{"rendered":"

A parliamentary committee looking into the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador and the depth of his relationship with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein<\/a> will not be afraid to publish material that is embarrassing to the government, its chair has said.<\/p>\n

Lord Beamish, who leads parliament\u2019s intelligence and security committee (ISC), said there had to be \u201cmaximum transparency\u201d about the vetting process Mandelson went through before he was appointed ambassador to the US in December 2024 and what the government knew about his friendship with Epstein.<\/p>\n

The ISC, which has statutory responsibility for oversight of the UK\u2019s intelligence services, will assess whether documents should not be released because they compromise national security, rather than jeopardising international relations, the Labour<\/a> peer told BBC Radio 4\u2019s The World Tonight.<\/p>\n

Beamish said it was possible the committee could publish documents that impacted international relations. \u201cIn the past, for example, we\u2019ve had disputes where things have potentially been embarrassing to governments, but we\u2019ve put them in because it doesn\u2019t jeopardise national security,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Asked if he felt Starmer had let the Labour party down, Beamish said the prime minister was a \u201cdecent individual\u201d but the furore over the release of documents about Mandelson\u2019s appointment had been badly handled. \u201cWe do need to ensure that we get maximum transparency,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the committee which I chair, can then also get as much transparency as possible around the information which can\u2019t be put in the public domain, that\u2019s \u2026 what we need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Downing Street had attempted to mitigate the Conservatives\u2019 attempt to trigger the release of the documents by adding exemptions for national security and to protect international relations. But MPs called the move a \u201ccover-up\u201d and demanded that judgment on their release be taken by the intelligence and security committee rather than the cabinet secretary. Whips were forced to draft a second amendment to appease MPs, which was passed on Wednesday night. No 10 said it would comply as soon as possible, in accordance with police advice.<\/p>\n

It had said it hoped to release documents on Wednesday, but was prevented from doing so by the Metropolitan police, which said certain records could not be released in case they prejudiced a criminal investigation<\/a> into Mandelson\u2019s alleged sharing of confidential government documents with Epstein.<\/p>\n

Tempers continued to flare at Westminster on Thursday after a day of anger among Labour MPs<\/a>, who warned Starmer\u2019s days as prime minister were numbered after he confirmed publicly that he was aware of reports that Mandelson had continued his association with Epstein after the latter\u2019s conviction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Further revelations in the Epstein files suggest Mandelson offered to help Epstein obtain a Russian visa, which the disgraced financier planned to use to meet young women in Moscow, BBC News has reported<\/a>. There is no indication that the politician knew why Epstein wanted the visa, and later emails suggest the trip was cancelled because it could not be obtained, it said.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the housing secretary, Steve Reed, said Mandelson had \u201cconned everybody\u201d, and that the prime minister and his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, were safe in their jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe person at fault here is not the prime minister or his team,\u201d he told Sky News. \u201cIt is Peter Mandelson<\/a> who lied, manipulated and deceived everybody, including the media \u2026 He conned everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labour MPs continued to voice disappointment about the handling of the scandal. Paula Barker, the MP for Liverpool Wavertree, told Radio 4\u2019s Today programme that Starmer had broken every pledge he had made when he stood to become leader of the Labour party and questioned his judgment.<\/p>\n

Asked how she felt when Starmer confirmed he knew about reports of links between Epstein and Mandelson before his appointment as ambassador, she said: \u201cI was disappointed. I was sickened. And quite frankly, I think the country deserves better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barker stopped short of calling on Starmer to resign, but said: \u201cI think the prime minister has shown that his judgment is questionable. I think he has questions to answer \u2026 I think he has a very long way to go to build trust and confidence with the public and trust, and confidence within our party as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A parliamentary committee looking into the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador and the depth of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409200,"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-409199","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\/409199","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=409199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}