John Hayes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Jun 2026 · National Security (State Threats) Bill · Hansard source

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  I hesitate to interrupt the flow of my right hon. and learned Friend, but the key point is legitimacy, as he and I have discussed. A state can be conducting legitimate activity by definition, whereas the bodies that have been proscribed previously are never legitimate implicitly. It is a difficult tightrope for Governments to walk, and that is why historically they have tended not to defer to a place where they chose to proscribed state bodies, because the implication is for the state as a whole. Where states take a “whole-state approach”—China being a good example—it is hard to walk that tightrope.

• 17 Jun 2026 · National Security (State Threats) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. Many people say that he was the second best Conservative Security Minister, and I tend to agree with that. Might he continue to build the bridges that have already been formed across the House during this debate by inviting the Minister, when she winds up, to re-examine the charitable status of a whole range of organisations that have intimate connections with the Chinese, Iranian or Russian state, as a parallel exercise to the consideration of this legislation? That would seem to me to be a sensible move that we could agree today.

• 17 Jun 2026 · National Security (State Threats) Bill · Hansard source

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  This situation is worsened, of course, by the values we seek to defend being used against us. Fair-minded British people want to believe that every side deserves a hearing, so we afford to some groups that do not deserve it a kind of equivalence—on one hand we have the west and Britain and America, and on the other hand we have these other groups. That equivalence is entirely bogus of course, because we are defending an open society and they are seeking to close it.

• 17 Jun 2026 · National Security (State Threats) Bill · Hansard source

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  The “2026 Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community” states: “The global security environment is becoming more complex.” That complexity is being fed by the increasing sophistication of our adversaries. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden) talked about AI and the impact it may have in adding to that complexity and deepening the threat. It is not just the US agencies that have come to that conclusion. The director general of MI5, in the speech referred to by the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards), said: “My teams are routinely uncovering attempts by state actors to commission surveillance, sabotage, arson or physical violence right here in the UK.” These adversaries, far from being remote, are real and present on the streets of our constituencies. That is why the Government’s attempts to improve the tools at the disposal of Ministers are welcome. It is why all the considerations made by Governments, of whatever hue, that are sufficient to deal with that rapidly changing threat deserve the hearing they are receiving. That is not an unqualified level of support—I shall explain my qualifications in due course—but in essence it is right that the Government look again at the legislative framework associated with keeping us safe. There is a weakness in democracies that is not shared by most of our enemies. That weakness is that legislation passes through this House and is scrutinised, debated and considered. That takes time. Our adversaries can, at will and at a whim, change their approach. Keeping pace with that change is difficult in an open and free society. That very openness and freedom is, of course, what we are here to promote and, indeed, to defend. The director general of MI5 went on to speak about the various enemies we face. For example, when he spoke of Russia, he said that the police have “disrupted a steady stream of surveillance plots with hostile intent” from the Russian state. He went on to speak about Iran. He said: “Iran’s autocratic regime is likewise frantically trying to silence its opponents around the world, including in the UK.” The hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley spoke about the number of plots that have been tracked in a single year. The director general went on to say: “The UK was among the first to call out this wave of…transnational aggression”, but in fact the problem is worldwide. On China, he said that “clandestine technology transfer…efforts to overtly influence UK public life…harassment and intimidation of opponents” are all features of Chinese activity here. Because China adopts a whole-state approach, it is not possible to separate the cause—China’s determination to undermine us—and its effect, in terms of the mechanism it uses to do that. None of that is a surprise to those who have sat on the Intelligence and Security Committee. As Members will know, it commissioned a report into Russia, before I was a member, and then, while I have had the privilege of serving on the Committee, reports into China and Iran. Our China report says that: “The fact that China is a strategic threat is not news…China’s state intelligence apparatus—almost certainly the largest in the world, with hundreds of thousands of civil intelligence officers (leaving aside their military capability)—targets the UK and its interests prolifically and aggressively.” The Chinese are particularly enthusiastic about their activities in high-tech industries and academia. Their ability to gain a head start in the economy is partly as a result of their infiltration of the knowledge sector, their theft of innovation, and the ability to persuade, frankly, naive—I am choosing my words carefully, as I was going to say witless—individualsto be party to the theft of intellectual property. China is active in its attempts to do harm across the world, and particularly in Britain, as the Government recognises. This and previous Governments have also long recognised that we need to update legislation to deal with that changing and increasingly complex threat—indeed, I note that both my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), present in the Chamber, and I were Security Ministers in previous Governments. The attempts by China to gain technological dominance, the attempts by Iran to infiltrate institutions, and the perpetual attempts by Russia, both in cyber-space and elsewhere, to undermine Britain’s interests and industry are clear. The Bill is part of a fitting response to those threats, but there are questions that I want to address, some of which amplify the remarks of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), who sits with me on the ISC. There is an important matter for the Government to deal with about the relationship between the Bill and the Terrorism Act 2006, in particular, as my right hon. and learned Friend said, proposed new section 17A to the National Security Act 2023. Essentially, the Government are creating a higher bar than that which applies in existing legislation. As was set out in the speech by my right hon. and learned Friend, we need to understand why that higher bar exists in the proposed legislation, and how it will be crossed. The purpose of the legislation is clear, but in practice it will only work if it can be supported in the courts. Designation will undoubtedly be challenged, so it has to stand up to the test of legal scrutiny. I have doubts as to whether the double bar that will be required to make designation practically possible can be straightforwardly met. Some more commentary from the Government on that would be helpful. I would also be interested to know why a different approach has been taken for designation itself, and why there is no discretionary power in the Bill for the Home Secretary to take action promptly—such action will sometimes be necessary—as she can in respect of proscription. As I know from my time as Security Minister—the Minister, too, will know this—it is sometimes necessary to act quickly on proscription because circumstances demand it. The Bill does not allow that level of discretion and flexibility, and I think the House has every reason to wonder why. In addition, the new statutory test for designation appears to introduce this cumulative two-pronged approach. We understand that proving that designation will protect and safeguard the interests of the UK is necessary, but that is not necessary in the case of proscription in the same way—at least, not in specific terms—and I wonder why the Government have chosen to adopt a different approach in that respect. There are a series of quite technical challenges to the Government over whether this well-intended legislation—which I think enjoys broad support across the House, from those who understand the scale of the threats that I have briefly outlined—will work in practice. I hope that the Minister, during the course of our considerations this afternoon, will be able to address some of those matters, particularly in relation to proposed new section 17A. The chief of the Secret Intelligence Service said recently: “We are now operating in a space between peace and war. This is not a temporary state or a gradual, inevitable evolution. Our world is being actively remade, with profound implications for national and international security.” She concluded: “It also means everyone in society really understanding the world we are in—a world where terrorists plot against us, where our enemies fearmonger, bully and manipulate, and the front line is everywhere. Online, on our streets, in our supply chains, in the minds and on the screens of our citizens. We must all stand together against this.” That means, of course, defending our values at every opportunity, in this House and beyond it; it means recognising that there is no ethical or moral equivalence between those who seek to do us harm and those who seek to defend us—whatever some of those who are either naive or malevolent might tell us—and it means being responsive to that threat, in the way that this legislation is intended to be, by having adequate resources for our security and intelligence services, and the right powers too. This Bill is an attempt to get those powers in place in order to protect us all. I wish it well, but I also press the Government to ensure that it is as effective as it needs to be.

• 17 Jun 2026 · National Security (State Threats) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is building to a crescendo, so I wanted to intervene before he sits down. The vigilance he calls for, which echoes what I said about us coming together to make a strong case for our values and to defend them against those who assail us, is going to become more difficult because of artificial intelligence—my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden) made a telling contribution in that respect. It is really important that we are not so fascinated by the novelty of innovation that we wait too long to regulate AI. It took us 25 years in this House to work out that the internet might have malign effects. Finally, the last Government introduced the Online Safety Act 2023, and this Government have now taken that further—quite rightly. For heaven’s sake, let us understand the risks that this poses in weakening the very resilience that the hon. Gentleman has called for.

• 17 Jun 2026 · National Security (State Threats) Bill · Hansard source

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  I accept what Jonathan Hall said, but what he did not say was that a higher statutory bar was needed to achieve a prosecution. What worries some of us, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) and me, is that the addition of that will make it quite hard to achieve a prosecution under the proposed law, not least because the Bill suggests that there must be a criminal purpose—an illicit purpose—involved in the association with a designated body. Will the Minister address that specific point?

• 17 Jun 2026 · National Security (State Threats) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am glad that the Minister has addressed that point, because it was raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) and I on Second Reading. Surely the counter-argument is that it will be a sure defence when prosecutions are brought; it will be much harder to secure a conviction, because the necessity to prove a purpose will be tested beyond measure. The association with a state-sponsored organisation such as, for example, the IRGC is ipso facto proof, surely, of guilt.

• 17 Jun 2026 · National Security (State Threats) Bill · Hansard source

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  Before my hon. Friend moves on to fines, the issue she has raised, and which I raised earlier, seems to be crucial. It is true that Jonathan Hall, as the Minister said on Second Reading, recognised that the approach to a terrorist organisation was different from the approach to a state. Nevertheless, creating this higher bar whereby to secure a successful prosecution it must be established that the individual concerned was acting on behalf of the designated body for a prohibited purpose—connection with the body alone is not sufficient—seems to me to make prosecution less likely rather than more likely. If international law is at the heart of that—the fear of appeals, and so on and so forth—we need to hear that from the Minister, and the case needs to be a highly persuasive, because it seems to me that the Government are making their lives more difficult, rather than easier.

• 15 Jun 2026 · State Pensioners: Personal Allowance · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 15 Jun 2026 · State Pensioners: Personal Allowance · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member has undersold me: I am right honourable, as he ought to know, really. Leaving that to one side, he will know that £253 billion is spent on non-pensioner welfare benefits. Many of those are entirely laudable—as I described when I spoke, the chronically sick, the infirm and profoundly disabled people deserve benefits, and I want those to be bigger and better—but many are not. The Government have ducked that responsibility. Whether previous Governments did, too, is not the point: this Government are in power, power brings responsibility and the Minister has the responsibility to tackle welfare.

• 15 Jun 2026 · State Pensioners: Personal Allowance · Hansard source

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  I am extremely grateful for your indulgence and generosity, Dr Huq. I wish to speak because I have enjoyed correspondence with the Minister at the Treasury Bench on exactly this subject on behalf of constituents who have written to me. Not only has he replied to me to address the concerns of my constituents, but so have his ministerial colleagues in the Treasury—such is the volume of my correspondence that it is too much for him alone to handle. It reflects the widespread concern among my constituents about the freezing of thresholds and the effect on pensioners, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths) has so admirably and ably highlighted. At the heart of this matter is a fundamental principle, which is that we owe a particular and special debt to those who have given a lifetime’s work to this nation. That is why a previous Government introduced what is known as the triple lock. I need not rehearse the argument for it at length today, except to say that in my judgment it is entirely legitimate and justified. Once it has been promised, it cannot be taken away—that is the political reality—but it has pushed more and more pensioners into taxation as thresholds have been frozen. Each year, more pensioners pay tax who should never have paid tax at all. That is not an entirely new phenomenon: I remember my father, who had a small works pension, paying tax in his 80s. He has been dead for more than 20 years, but he said to me then, “I am 85 and still paying tax. Is that really appropriate?” My answer then, like my answer now, was no. It is not appropriate for people on relatively modest incomes to be drawn into tax because of the freezing of thresholds. I endorse entirely what my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said, but—with your further indulgence, Dr Huq—I want to make two other points. I want to make a case, as I have before in this very Chamber, for the WASPI women. Those women were caught out by a change in the provision of pensions due to an alteration in the age at which women retired. They have suffered an injustice; that is not just my consideration or judgment, but that of the ombudsman, who accused the Government of maladministration. Those women, too, deserve a hearing. Before you call me to order, Dr Huq, and tell me that I am digressing from the subject at hand—

• 15 Jun 2026 · State Pensioners: Personal Allowance · Hansard source

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  My final point is that the Government have options to take and choices to make. Of course, pensions are funded from the welfare budget. There are those, perhaps including some Members on the Conservative Benches, who say that the triple lock is no longer sustainable. The Minister himself might have flirted with that idea in an earlier life when he was a thinker, not a doer— [ Interruption. ] No, he ran a think-tank. Now he is a man who does things; then, he was a man who only thought about doing things. I take the view that the welfare budget is burgeoning because a large number of people of working age are claiming benefits, not because they are unable to work because they are profoundly disabled, infirm or otherwise incapacitated—for those people, I stand firm and do so proudly —but because they choose not to work and to let others work and pay tax, including those pensioners drawn into taxation by the freezing of thresholds. Pensioners have every right to ask why they should struggle, as many do; we know of pensioner poverty. I have the figures here: 2.2 million pensioners are in relative low income before housing costs, and 1.3 million are in relative low income after housing costs. We know that pensioners are struggling, and they will say, “Why should we do so when others, who could work, choose not to? Why have the Government failed to recognise that?” Notwithstanding his change of status, I suspect the Minister still thinks seriously about these things from time to time, when he is not busy doing the other duties that are a necessary part of governing, including replying to my correspondence. I am sure he must have considered this issue in the broad-minded way for which I know he is famed. For heaven’s sake, let us raise thresholds. Let us protect pensioners. Let us cut welfare, but cut it wisely and reduce the benefits of those who choose not to help themselves. Welfare is a safety net, is it not? It should always be for those who cannot do without it. With those few thoughts, I leave the matter to the wisdom of the Minister and to the remainder of the Chamber —but I stand firmly and squarely behind the very appropriate advocacy of my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton for the pensioners in her constituency, and I stand with the pensioners in mine.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Progression of Bills through Parliament · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 8 Jun 2026 · Progression of Bills through Parliament · Hansard source

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  I have not participated in the debate because I was not able to be here at the beginning, but I heard many of the speeches. In a number of them, it was suggested that the Bill received unusual levels of consideration. That is simply not so. Many of us have been in this House for a very long time and have seen legislation that has had pre-legislative scrutiny in both Houses, and independent reports commissioned on it, long before Second Reading. This Bill had none of that.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lebanon: Israel Defence Forces Operations · Hansard source

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  In referring the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I commend the Minister for visiting Lebanon in April, and for his continuing dialogue with the very good new ambassador here and our ambassador there. He will know that the Lebanese people deserve to be free from fear, persistent uncertainty, perpetual hostility and permanent doubt. The only way for that to happen, as he said, is to support the Lebanese Government and armed forces. We do so already, but to endorse the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), will the Minister look at what further steps can be taken to communicate that support within Lebanon? The worry people have, which I think is shared across the Chamber, is that, sadly and tragically, the Lebanese people will come to believe that Hezbollah is defending them. In fact, it is doing anything but; it is endangering them. What further steps can he take to reassure the Lebanese people of what he has told the House today?

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman knows me well, and he knows of my disdain for Gladstone and my deep admiration for his rival Benjamin Disraeli, who in my judgment was the greatest ever Prime Minister by far. The key thing about the ISC, on which I sit—I am grateful for the Minister’s comments about its work—is that the House took the view that the ISC should see the whole of the information. Whether that was the right view or whether the Humble Address was too permissive is an open question, but the House took the view that we should see all matters relating to international relations or national security. An executive decision was taken—I do not know whether it was endorsed by Ministers; it was certainly endorsed subsequently by the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister—not to make the UK Security Vetting file available to the ISC. That is not what the Humble Address says. Subsequently, that has been legitimised by the argument, which I do not buy, that it would have a chilling effect on the whole vetting process. However, the Minister—and by the way, I share the respect of my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) for him—knows that the ISC’s seeing material is not the same as disclosing it. This is about scrutiny, not disclosure, so why was an executive decision made not to make that information available to the ISC? Who made it, and when? Was it made by officials? Was it made by Ministers? Will he explain how he can square that with the remark he just made?

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  I would not recommend it.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  When the Metropolitan police have concluded their investigation, all of that material will return to the ISC, and presumably the Government will then want to publish the information, albeit in an appropriate and redacted form.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right that that was highlighted in the ISC’s statement on these matters, and that is an issue to which it may return. It is not for me to prejudge that, but it is a matter of considerable concern. It was raised during the period of the last Government, actually, so it is not unique to this Government. Indeed, we had issues in that regard with previous Secretaries of State and Ministers—I will say no more than that. My hon. Friend is right that it is entirely unsuitable that Ministers are using insecure means to communicate very sensitive information. May I press my hon. Friend to challenge a little further in respect of Peter Mandelson? We understand that Mandelson’s own messages have not been disclosed. Will my hon. Friend press the Government on the point at which they became aware—prior to, during or subsequent to Mandelson’s appointment—that Mandelson was withholding information of the electronic kind to which my hon. Friend draws the House’s attention, particularly given that the Humble Address specifically deals with the issue of electronic communications?

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Lady will know furthermore that Ian Collard, through a letter sent on his behalf to the Foreign Office, told MPs that he had sent an email “recording the fact of the decision (but not any of the underlying discussions or reasons for doing so) and mitigations”. She is absolutely right, and when she said earlier that she was unknowing of why this had occurred, I think the whole House would share her view. None of us quite know why on earth that material does not exist or, if it does exist, why it is not being made available. My fourth point—I am coming to my exciting conclusion; I know you will be pleased to hear that, Madam Deputy Speaker—concerns the declaration of interests form. We know from the first tranche of documents that were relayed to the House that a blank template on declaration of interests for Peter Mandelson to complete was made available, but the completed declaration of interests, from which presumably detailed actions could be derived, has never been made known. I understand that this is another document that may have found its way into the hands of the Metropolitan police. If so, when did that occur, when did the Metropolitan police request it and, again, why? Greater clarity from the Government on the declaration of interests would be most welcome. Finally, thanks to the learning of the Paymaster General, we were able to speak a little earlier of Gladstone and Disraeli. I carry a picture of Benjamin Disraeli with me at all times. Many people carry pictures of their children or grandchildren; I carry a picture of Disraeli—

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  I do not think that anyone wants to publish that document. The point is that it was a document that could have been made available to the ISC not for publication, not for disclosure, but for scrutiny, because it might have informed our understanding of the whole process.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  This House stands tall when those across it find common cause in speaking for the people. Our authority is derived from just that. There is immense wisdom present in the House today, and probably even greater wisdom that is not present, but that is not the essence of the root of our authority which is derived from our election, and when the House finds its feet in the way personified by the speech of the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), the message broadcast from this place more broadly is that MPs do not merely dance to the tune composed and conducted by the Treasury Bench, or indeed the Opposition Front Bench, but are capable of making judgments of the kind that she epitomised in making her contribution earlier. I have been part of this process. I will not say that I have sweated blood, but I have certainly spent a great deal of time on it, as has my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright). Over the past weeks, I have seen more of my fellow members of the Intelligence and Security Committee than I have of my own family, as we have trawled through immense numbers of documents. Following that process, I want to make five points. The first is that the Humble Address—there is a debate to be had about the appropriateness of Humble Addresses; we have rehearsed parts of that debate today—was absolutely explicit in its instructions to the ISC. It empowered the ISC in a unique and unprecedented way to examine those documents concerning international relations and national security pertaining to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as the ambassador in America. I do not accept the arguments about the withdrawal of documents and about precedent, because this particular Humble Address empowered the ISC in an unprecedented way. It did so on 4 February, in expansive terms. There is a case to be made that the Humble Address was too permissive, but that is not for us to debate now, for that was the debate that took place then. For example, it talks about all “electronic communications”, yet we have seen nothing of the videos, recorded messages or other kinds of electronic communications that clearly might be salient to our consideration of whether Peter Mandelson should have been appointed at all, and why he was appointed. The Humble Address gave the ISC that instruction, and so it is important to make it crystal clear that the ISC is a Committee of Parliament with unique and special legal powers, and those legal powers extend beyond any other Committee of the House and enable the Committee to look at the most sensitive matters of all, such as STRAP documents. I would argue that such documents are as sensitive as, and in many cases more so than, anything that we might have been offered as a result of the Humble Address providing that instruction to us, yet the Government took the decision not to make available to the ISC the vetting file associated with Peter Mandelson. The argument used was that if they did so, it would have a chilling effect on the whole vetting process. I regard that as specious because it confuses scrutiny with disclosure. The ISC was never going to disclose any of that material—a point made by its former Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis). It was a matter for the Government to have faith in the ISC—as the House clearly did—or at least for the Government to reflect the faith of the House in providing all the relevant material to the ISC. But let us leave that to one side. The Minister might want to come back to this, because my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam, who sits on the ISC with me—indeed, he is the deputy Chairman of that Committee—came to the House with an urgent question, explicitly requesting that the Government return to the subject of the Humble Address to see whether they wished to amend it, to legitimise their decision not to provide that information. The Government chose not to do that. In other words, they chose not to ask the House for consent. That is a highly questionable decision and, frankly, I think the Government will come to regret not coming back to obtain that consent. Let us move on to my second point. I will not say too much about this, but it is now known—it is in the public domain—that the ISC did receive a summary document. Indeed, some of that summary document has found its way into the public realm by means of a national newspaper, the Manchester Guardian , which clearly had access to information. We heard earlier that there may be an inquiry into how that information found its way into the press, but we were told that that information would not be available in the second tranche of information, even in redacted form, because it was required by the police. However, we do not know when the police made that inquiry or when they decided that the information was vital to their investigations, and we have been given no rationale as to why they might have come to that decision so late in the process. Had they made the decision earlier, we would have saved a lot of time, and the expectation that we might have seen more about vetting would not have been fixed in the minds of Members of this House. It is important that the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister is crystal clear about when that request from the Metropolitan police was made, and it would be helpful if he could give us some indication of why. Clearly he could not compromise the investigation or any subsequent legal action, but giving the House some indication of when and why the police changed their tune, as it were, in respect of the summary of the vetting file would be highly desirable. Let me move on to my third point, which concerns mitigation. I said that there were five points, and I know you are counting them, Madam Deputy Speaker.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  In those terms, at what point did the Metropolitan police ask for the vetting summary? Clearly it is now a known fact that there was an assumption that that vetting summary, but not the granular detail, was likely to be published, albeit in a redacted form, having been through the normal process.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  Indeed, you will chastise me if I do not stick to my chronology precisely, Madam Deputy Speaker. As the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) said, there is some confusion about the character of mitigation. We certainly know that nothing has been provided in respect of mitigation or about the reaction to the flags about Mandelson’s associations with senior figures in foreign states or his personal circumstances, yet Sir Oliver Robbins gave evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee in April—its Chair has made this clear—in which he said that clearance could be approved if “risks identified as of highest concern…could be managed and/or mitigated.” Such mitigations were meant to have been noted in an email from Ian Collard, the Foreign Office head of security, noting the decision to grant Mandelson’s clearance. According to Sir Oliver Robbins, that email recorded “the ways in which we would manage” Mandelson’s clearance and “the mitigations”. Sir Oliver Robbins’s claim was supported by the top official in charge of gathering the Humble Address material, Cat Little. She told MPs that she had seen an email that “sets out the decision to grant DV and some mitigations.” There was certainly a stated need to manage the risks associated with Peter Mandelson’s appointment and an acknowledgment that that might be done through some process of mitigation, but we have heard no more. It may be that no detailed mitigation plan was drawn up. It is perfectly possible that that might have happened, for the very reason that these risks were so great that they could not have been mitigated. However, even if that were the case, surely there would have been box notes or communications in emails making all that clear between the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office, between UKSV and the Cabinet Office, and between Ministers and officials, yet we have seen nothing.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  I will say no more except this: Disraeli said that circumstances are beyond our control, but we all have control of our conduct. Of course it is true that the context in which the appointment of Peter Mandelson was made was beyond the control of the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister who is responding to the debate, but the conduct of the Government, as described by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam, is a matter for which he and other members of the Treasury Bench are answerable. The conduct of this affair seems to me to be, at best, highly questionable and, at worst, something much more serious. I simply say to the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister: there is still a chance to put to rights some of these wrongs in what happens next. Some of the questions posed from across the House, as it found its feet earlier today, can and still should be answered. We will not get the full detail until the Metropolitan police have conducted their own inquiries and I understand that, but there is much that can be done to provide further explanation about the things we have not seen and why.