Starmer-Mandelson latest: Olly Robbins suggests PM should have blocked peer’s appointment over Epstein links

The leaking of details about Lord Mandelson failing security checks was a “grievous breach of national security” and prosecutions should follow, Sir Olly Robbins said.

Sir Olly said it was deeply worrying that the story was given to The Guardian newspaper within days of the Cabinet Office briefing Number 10 on the vetting issues.

“I’m not making accusations at anybody, it’s not my business to do so,” he told the committee, adding: “I hope they’re being very rigorously investigated, and that prosecutions will result, because this is a grievous breach of national security.

“I’m not an investigator, all I’m able to do is put two and two together.

“The first I heard of this deep concern and briefing of it to the Prime Minister was only really hours before it appeared in The Guardian.”

Analysis, by Kate Devlin, Whitehall Editor

The prime minister’s key defence in this whole row is that if someone had told him that Mandelson had failed crucial security vetting he would not have made him as the UK’s man in Washington.

But, in his evidence to MPs, Olly Robbins suggests the PM did have enough information to block the appointment.

He highlighted the ‘due diligence’ process, carried out before the vetting check, which, Mr Robbins added “threw up serious reputational risks”.

Mr Robbins told MPs: “I regret that the due diligence process, which threw up serious reputational risks, didn’t colour the PM’s judgement in making the appointment”.

Sir Olly Robbins said he does not “reflect negatively” on his own judgment or that of his colleagues.

Asked about whether he thinks about the consequences of the decision he made regarding Lord Mandelson’s clearance, he told the Foreign Affairs Committee: “I’ve had plenty of opportunity over the last few days to reflect on that.

“I think about the consequences of it right now I’m afraid for my wonderful family and for the fact that I don’t seem to be able to sleep in my own home and for various other things, but I don’t reflect negatively on the professionalism and the judgments of my colleagues or I hope myself.”

There have been a number of bombshell revelations already in the testimony from the former top official at the Foreign Office, sacked last week by Keir Starmer over the Mandelson scandal.

• Parts of government did not want to vet Mandelson at all.
• No 10 had a “dismissive approach” to vetting and there was an “atmosphere of pressure”, while Downing Street wanted Mandelson in Washington as quickly as ‘humanly possible’.
• Changing ambassador after Mandelson had been appointed would have “damaged” relations with the US.
• No 10 tried to find a diplomatic job for Matthew Doyle, then the PM’s chief of communications, now a peer who Labour was forced to suspend earlier this year over his links to a convicted paedophile.

Sir Olly Robbins has said he “regrets” that due diligence concerns raised about Peter Mandelson did not “colour the prime minister’s judgement” in his decision to appoint him as US ambassador.

Giving evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee, Sir Olly said he “regrets” that the full security vetting process was not done before the government announced Mandelson’s appointment, but said he does not regret the “work of my brilliant team and the judgment that we came to”.

“I regret that this process was not done before announcement. I regret that the due diligence process, which threw up as I understand it, serious reputational risks, didn’t colour the prime minister’s judgment in making the appointment,” he said.

He added: “What I feel sad about, is that the prime minister’s nominee went ahead despite that due diligence.”

Asked whether Sir Keir Starmer is right to have expected to be provided with more information on the vetting process, Sir Olly Robbins said that is a “dangerous misunderstanding” of confidentiality around the process.

The former Foreign Office chief told the Foreign Affairs Committee: “I hope it’s clear from everything I have said so far that I believe that’s a misunderstanding and a dangerous misunderstanding of the necessity of confidentiality of the process.

“I’ve been interested, of course, over the last couple of days to read Lord Hague on this today and David Lammy even on Saturday, the former foreign secretary, deputy prime minister, where both have said in different language that they have never had vetting issues discussed with them in all their time as a minister and nor would they expect to.

“I’m afraid that’s exactly the culture I have been brought up in. It’s supported by guidance. You are not supposed to share the findings and reports of UKSV other than in the exceptional circumstances where doing so allows for the specific mitigation of risk.”

Sir Olly Robbins said it was not a “given” that Lord Mandelson would be vetted for his appointment as US ambassador.

The former senior civil servant told the Foreign Affairs Committee: “It was not a … I’m afraid I don’t think at the point of his appointment and for days thereafter it was actually a given that he would be vetted.

“If you look at the documents submitted under the humble address there is no stipulation from number 10 that he should be vetted.

“The welcome that was sent to him immediately afterwards doesn’t say welcome to the Foreign Office subject to vetting; the announcement put out on December 20 says that he will be out early in the new year, it does not say subject to vetting.”

He said the contract issued to Lord Mandelson after he was vetted said he must maintain his clearance “but nothing about his appointment actually, as far as I’ve seen in writing, stipulates it”.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: “The evidence from Olly Robbins is devastating to Keir Starmer.

“It is clear that No10 not only made the appointment before vetting was completed, but that Mandelson was already acting as the ambassador before the vetting – even seeing highly-classified documents.

“With this, and the ‘constant pressure’ No10 applied to the appointment and their ‘dismissive attitude’ to vetting Mandelson, it is now absolutely clear that ‘full due process’ was not followed.

“Keir Starmer has misled the House.”