Starmer on collision course with sacked civil servant over Mandelson scandal
The Prime Minister's attempts to survive the scandal will be challenged when former Foreign Office civil servant Olly Robbins appears in front of MPs later today
Sir Keir Starmer is on a collision course with a former top Foreign Office civil servant, Sir Olly Robbins, over the scandal over Lord Mandelson's vetting before becoming US Ambassador.
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Sir Olly, who was removed as Foreign Office permanent under-secretary last week, is set to appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday.
During the appearance, he is set to give evidence on the recommendation that Mandelson should not be granted security clearance before his appointment to Washington.
The row over Mandelson's appointment has again threatened Sir Keir's job, with his critics now suggesting that his decision to announce Mandelson's appointment before vetting had taken place may see him ousted.
Sir Olly will appear before the influential group of MPs and is understood to be preparing to partially blame Sir Keir's rushed announcement for the scandal.
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After sacking Sir Olly from his role last week, the PM accused the top official of covering up Mandelson's vetting issues from him.
The Prime Minister is now set to remove the Foreign Office's power to overrule vetting recommendations for diplomats.
According to The Times, the former head of the Foreign Office will tell MPs that he did not see the formal recommendation saying Mandelson should not be given clearance.
Peter Mandelson failed vetting checks carried out by quango, UK Security Vetting (UKSV) on behalf of the Foreign Office, which were carried out between 23 December 2024 and 28 January 2025.
He will also reportedly tell MPs that he was given a verbal briefing by his department's security team that Mandelson's appointment was a "borderline" case.
Sir Olly is said to be preparing to tell the committee that the UK Security Vetting agency told him that they believed the risks of appointing the New Labour grandee could be mitigated.
The sacked civil servant will then highlight the "atmosphere" at the time of the appointment as a reason for it being rammed through.
This will heap pressure on the Prime Minister, who did not wait for vetting to be conducted before making an announcement that Mandelson would be appointed.
Sir Keir denies knowing of the recommendation that Mandelson not be clear before last week.
He also admitted in the Commons on Monday that he "should not have appointed Peter Mandelson" to Britain's most senior diplomatic post over his ties to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Russia and China.
Speaking in the Commons for the first time since it emerged that former Lord Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting, the Prime Minister said he was "frankly staggered" that he was never informed the disgraced peer had failed his security vetting.
The PM went on to claim that he has always followed proper procedure and only found out last Tuesday that Mandelson had failed - a decision that was ultimately overruled, Starmer insisted.
Sir Keir told MPs: "I should not have appointed Peter Mandelson. I take responsibility for that decision. And I apologise, again to the victims of the paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, who were clearly failed by my decision."
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Speaking to MPs on Monday, Sir Keir said he immediately instructed officials to establish the facts of who made the decision, on what basis and who knew about it, after discovering the revelation.
“This is information I should have had a long time ago and information this House should have had a long time ago," he told MPs.
He also said it "beggars belief" that the cabinet secretary - the most senior civil servant in the UK -was never told that Mandelson failed those checks.
"I do not accept that the then-cabinet secretary could not have been told in September 2025 when he carried out his review into the process.
“I do not accept that the Foreign Secretary could not have been told when making statements to the select committee, again in 2025.
“But on top of that the fact that I was not told even when I ordered a review of the UKSV process, is frankly staggering, and I can tell the House that I’ve now updated the terms of reference for the review into security vetting to make sure it covers the means by which all decisions are made in relation to national security vetting.”
Robbins's allies are insisting that under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, national security vetting is legally independent of ministers.
Put simply, this means that the senior civil servant was unable to alert the PM or ministers due to internal processes.
But Sir Keir said: "There is no law that stops civil servants sensibly flagging UKSV recommendations, while protecting detailed sensitive vetting information to allow ministers to make judgements on appointments or on explaining matters to Parliament."
The Prime Minister also announced he has updated the terms of a probe into Government security vetting in light of the latest revelations, and has appointed Sir Adrian Fulford, a senior judge and chair of the Southport Inquiry, to lead the review.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused the Prime Minister of breaching the ministerial code by waiting nearly a week to come to the Commons with information about Lord Peter Mandelson failing his security vetting.
Mrs Badenoch said: “His reputation is at stake. Everyone is watching. It is finally time for the truth.”Arguing that Sir Keir Starmer inadvertently misled the House, she said: “I will remind him that, under the ministerial code, he has a duty to correct the record at the earliest opportunity.
“The Prime Minister says he only found out on Tuesday that Peter Mandelson failed the security vetting. The earliest opportunity to correct the record was Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, almost a week ago. This is a breach of the ministerial code.”
Sir Keir replied: “When I found out what had happened on Tuesday evening last, I wanted to have answers to the question: who made the decision to recommend to give clearance on developed vetting, contrary to the advice, why that was done and who knew about it, so I could provide the information to the House.
“That is the exercise that’s been conducted since Tuesday evening and today, so that I could come here today to give the full account to the House, which I’ve just set out.”