MP calls for independent investigation into Peter Mandelson

Rachael Maskell asked “what else does Peter Mandelson know?” after new details emerged about Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein prior to him being appointed as UK ambassador to the US.

“Where else have his [Lord Mandelson’s] tentacles of power of power run into? And, I think, they’re the kind of questions which are being asked across the Parliamentary Labour Party,” the Labour MP for York Central told Sky News.

Rachael Maskell, MP for York Central (Image: UK Parliament/PA Wire)

“He may not hold an office, he may not hold a membership of the Labour party, but clearly his phonebook will be full of numbers.

“And will he control from his own now very much lower position, or what will happen next?

“I think we need an independent investigation into this.”

Lord Mandelson, who has quit the House of Lords, resigned from the Labour Party, been removed from the Privy Council and faces a criminal investigation following new revelations from the so-called Epstein files.

Ms Maskell presented a bill in 2022 to give the monarch new powers to remove titles or for parliament to determine that a title should be taken away. 

The MP said the legislation, which is awaiting its second reading, is “timely” and parliament could “rush that through and address the issue of [Lord Mandelson’s] peerage”.

Lord Mandelson, a political appointment rather than a career diplomat, was sacked from his Washington role in September last year over his links with Epstein, who died in 2019.

His continued association with Epstein following a 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor had been widely reported before his return to the political front line, when he was named as ambassador in 2024.

But documents released as part of the US Department of Justice’s Epstein Files raised new concerns in recent days.

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MPs on Wednesday (February 4) approved the release of documents relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US.

It followed the prime minister backing down from his original plans for top civil servant Sir Chris Wormald to decide which documents could not be released on national security grounds or because they could prejudice international relations.

Under pressure from Labour MPs, led by former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, Sir Keir Starmer accepted the decision could be made by parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) instead.

However, a minister told the House the documents would not be released immediately after a request from the Metropolitan Police.

The Metropolitan Police has told the government not to release “certain documents” that would “undermine” their investigation into the disgraced peer.

Sir Keir earlier told the Commons he knew about the former business secretary’s ongoing friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein when he appointed him ambassador to the US.

But he said the peer “lied repeatedly” about the extent of the relationship.