{"id":538879,"date":"2026-04-19T05:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T05:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/538879\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T05:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T05:06:07","slug":"foreign-secretary-concerned-ministers-not-told-of-mandelson-vetting-fears-sooner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/538879\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign secretary concerned ministers not told of Mandelson vetting fears sooner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vetting of government employees and appointees is carried out by an agency overseen by the Cabinet Office, which reports back to hiring departments with recommendations.<\/p>\n

BBC News understands the vetting report returned a “no” verdict on whether a security clearance granting access to sensitive government material should be given to Lord Mandelson.<\/p>\n

He formally took up the ambassador post in February 2025, before being removed last September when further details about his ties with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein came to light.<\/p>\n

It has emerged that Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo found out about Mandelson’s vetting failure in late March, but had to investigate the circumstances and legal implications before informing the prime minister.<\/p>\n

The Cabinet Office said senior officials “did the right thing” and had taken “urgent steps” to update the prime minister.<\/p>\n

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, external<\/a>, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused Sir Keir of letting others take the fall while he clings to power and branded him as “unfit to run the country”.<\/p>\n

“This is not just a political failure. It is a moral one. He has put our national security at risk… he should resign,” she wrote.<\/p>\n

Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey called for an investigation by the Privileges Committee into whether the prime minister intentionally misled Parliament.<\/p>\n

The SNP, Green Party and Reform UK have also called for Sir Keir to resign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vetting of government employees and appointees is carried out by an agency overseen by the Cabinet Office, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-538879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538879","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=538879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}