Starmer: It was my mistake appointing Peter Mandelson
Keir Starmer has told reporters in Northern Ireland that “it was me that made the mistake” in appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador “and it’s me that makes the apology to the victims of Epstein”.
It is the prime minister’s first comments on Mandelson since the release of the files relating to his appointment yesterday afternoon.
He said:
The release of the information shows what was known. That led to further questions being asked.
Unfortunately, because of the Metropolitan police investigation, we can’t release that information yet.
But that doesn’t take away from the fact that it was me that made a mistake, and it’s me that makes the apology to the victims of Epstein, and I do that.
Key events
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has said Peter Mandelson should return his severance payment.
When asked by journalists at the Scottish Parliament if Mandelson should return the payment, Sarwar said:
Absolutely, I mean this is a man who has proven to be a traitor to his country.
He’s proven to be a traitor to many of his former colleagues, although that’s of less importance, he’s someone that should never have been considered or appointed as ambassador and he should do the right thing and return the money that he got as a payment.
Legislation to strip Peter Mandelson of his title could be broadened out to include any peer who has broken the rules, Downing Street has said.
Keir Starmer’s spokesman told reporters:
The prime minister has asked officials to draft legislation which allows Peter Mandelson’s peerage to be removed as quickly as possible.
The government’s preference is to bring forward legislation that could be applied to any peer who has breached the rules and brought the other place into disrepute, rather than Mandelson specifically.
We have begun the work of looking at the scope and ability for such a Bill to be introduced.
But a Bill of that nature has not been brought before Parliament since 1478, so we are working on that, and we are liaising with the House authorities to ensure that we get this right.
People are “getting ripped off” over the price of oil to heat their homes, the prime minister has said.
Speaking in Belfast, Keir Starmer said:
I’ve asked the Treasury minister to talk to the [Northern Ireland] Executive here about oil-based heating in homes, and how we can co-ordinate our response to this because of the prices increasing because of Iran, and get our arms around that.
The other thing I’m worried about is that some people are getting ripped off in the costs of the oil to heat their houses, and we’ve got to bear down on any ripping off at all.
We’ll do all that we can in relation to this. I am acutely aware that this is the single most important issue for many people across Northern Ireland.
Downing Street denies ‘cover-up’ in Mandelson documents
Downing Street has denied leaving key details out of government files relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US released yesterday.
The PA news agency reported Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson as saying there was no “cover-up” after a comment box in the due diligence report reserved for his response was left blank.
The prime minister did not write any notes on the document, therefore nothing was redacted, PA reported.
Starmer’s spokesperson said: “I refute the suggestion of a cover-up. The government’s complied fully. I just don’t accept that it’s the case at all.
“There are a range of different ways in which the prime minister’s senior team responds to advice.
He added: “The prime minister did read the advice, but clearly there are lessons to be learned on the wider appointment processes, and the processes that led up to them.”
It comes after Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch claimed this morning that key details were missing from the documents. She told PA: “I’ve been a minister and a secretary of state, the comments which Keir Starmer would have put on the box notes – those are the cover notes where you explain what you want to happen – are missing.
“They have been removed. We need the full details of what the prime minister did. There is still a cover-up going on.”
‘Ball is in their court’: Ministers urge Scottish government to match funding for defence colleges
Severin Carrell
Elsewhere, the UK government has called on Scottish ministers to help fund two new defence technical colleges in Scotland, accusing ministers in Edinburgh of failing to invest enough in military industrial training.
Luke Pollard, the UK’s defence readiness minister, and Douglas Alexander, the Scottish secretary, said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) would spend £20m in setting up defence technical excellence colleges (DTEC) in east and west central Scotland if that was match-funded by the devolved Scottish government.
That funding promise came as part of a £50m “defence growth deal” for Scotland, where the MoD is attempting to expand and reinvigorate defence manufacturing in response to the increasing security threats facing the UK and Nato. The MoD says it already spends £2bn a year in Scotland.
Their initiative puts defence on the electoral agenda before May’s Holyrood elections. Labour believes the Scottish National party has been too resistant to military spending, despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its sorties close to UK airspace, terrorist attacks against UK and European civilian targets blamed on Russia, and successive crises in the Middle East.
In other economic policy areas, particularly the closure of Grangemouth’s oil refinery early last year, both governments have worked very closely on college and jobs investments. This time, the MoD has announced its DTEC strategy without Scottish government support, although Pollard insisted Scottish officials were aware of the MoD’s skills investment plans.
Pollard and Alexander said despite record defence order books for Scotland, including a £10bn frigate contract with Norway centred on BAE Systems shipyards in Glasgow, Rosyth had had to hire foreign welders because of a Scottish skills shortage.
The MoD also stepped in to fund an £11m specialist welders training centre Rolls Royce wanted to set up in Glasgow after Scottish ministers failed to do so, citing a Scottish policy not to back defence companies linked to munitions manufacture and Israel Defense Forces contracts.
Speaking at a defence investment conference near Glasgow airport on Thursday, Alexander said:
The Scottish government have taken a different approach to defence skills in recent years than the UK government, but we’re making a good faith offer today to join us in recognising that in the circumstances where the threat environment has changed significantly for the UK in recent years, not least in the Euro-Atlantic security area, that the right and responsible course is to make sure that young Scots have the skills that they need to make a meaningful contribution to, not just our defence industrial base, but our national security going forward.
So having made this offer today, the ball’s in the court of the Scottish government to decide whether they want to recognise that responsibility and match the funding commitment that we’ve made as a UK government.
The Scottish government has been approached for comment.
Growing disquiet over Mandelson’s £75,000 severance pay, with suggestions he should donate to charity
MPs have voiced anger over the severance payout Peter Mandelson received after he was sacked as ambassador to the US last year, with some suggesting he should donate it to a charity supporting victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse.
Government documents released yesterday relating to Mandelson’s appointment showed he received £75,000 as severance pay, after initially asking for more than half a million pounds.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said he should not have received anything. “If someone has been dishonest and lied, you don’t give them a severance payment,” she said. “So something very dodgy has happened.”
Cabinet minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said the taxpayer-funded payout was “value for money”, considering Mandelson requested £547,000 which was negotiated down to £75,000.
But he added that “from a moral point of view, it is incredibly difficult to even think that that money is still being retained”, and suggested that it should be donated to a charity supporting Epstein victims, saying it would be “the decent thing” to do.
Scotland secretary Douglas Alexander said Mandelson should give the money up. “I would urge him to do so,” he said. “Whether that’s to charities or to others working in the area of the exploitation of women.
“We need to recognise that the primary victims in this instance and the people who are most betrayed were the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.”
Families given a week to decide whether to leave UK voluntarily plead for more time
Diane Taylor
In other news, families who received notices asking them to agree to return to their home countries are begging the Home Office to give them more time to make a decision that will significantly affect their children’s futures.
The Home Office has targeted 150 families whose asylum claims were refused and given them just seven days to make the decision, which would uproot their children from schools and adopted communities. Those who refuse to leave voluntarily may be forcibly removed in handcuffs, including children.
The Home Office announced the new pilot scheme a week ago, asking the families to opt for expedited voluntary return to their home countries with the sweetener of “go home” payments of up to £10,000 per family member, up to a total of £40,000.
Families who have received emails from the Home Office said they pressure them to leave the UK quickly. They are distraught at the prospect of them and their children being rushed out of the UK back to their home countries where they believe their lives are still at risk.
Read the full report here:
The PA news agency has reported more comments from the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch this morning during her visit to a plant hire company in Wembley.
She said Peter Mandelson should not have received a severance payout after his sacking from the top diplomatic role in Washington. Mandelson had received £75,000, government documents released yesterday showed, after he initially asked for more than £500,000.
“If someone has been dishonest and lied, you don’t give them a severance payment. So something very dodgy has happened,” Badenoch said.
Earlier this morning, cabinet minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said the taxpayer-funded payout Mandelson received was “value for money”. He told Sky News: “You can look at the documents, you can see on a value for money basis why that decision was made. There was an original request for £547,000 that was negotiated down to £75,000.”
But he added that “from a moral point of view, it is incredibly difficult to even think that that money is still being retained”, and suggested that it should be donated to a charity supporting Epstein victims, saying it would be “the decent thing” to do.
Meanwhile, Badenoch was asked whether Labour MPs were coming to her to try to stage a vote of no confidence in Keir Starmer. She said: “That’s a discussion that a few of them have had with the whips.”
Mandelson removed from privy council
Peter Mandelson has been officially removed from the privy council, a formal body of advisers to the monarch.
In the minutes of a meeting of the privy council on Tuesday (published today), it states: “An order striking out The Lord Mandelson from the List of Members of His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council.”
A spectacular fall from grace for Mandelson, who was appointed lord president of the privy council in 2009. While its function is largely ceremonial, the privy council is comprised of seniors parliamentarians past and present, leading members of the Church of England, senior judges, senior civil servants and Commonwealth representatives.
Tuesday’s routine meeting was held at Buckingham Palace, and was attended by King Charles, as well as home secretary Shabana Mahmood, environment secretary Emma Reynolds, Wales secretary Jo Stevens and Cabinet Office secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds.
Mandelson resigned from the House of Lords last month, but removing a peerage is a complex process. Prime minister Keir Starmer has asked officials to draft legislation to strip Mandelson of his ‘Lord’ title, for the first time since the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 removed the peerages of a group of lords who had aided Britain’s enemies during the war.
Key details missing in Mandelson documents, says Badenoch
The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, said key details were missing in the government documents released yesterday on Mandelson’s 2024 appointment as ambassador to the US.
During a visit to Flannery Plant Hire in Wembley, north London, Badenoch told the Press Association news agency:
A lot of information is missing.
I’ve been a minister and a secretary of state, the comments which Keir Starmer would have put on the box notes – those are the cover notes where you explain what you want to happen – are missing.
They have been removed. We need the full details of what the prime minister did. There is still a cover-up going on.
She added:
I am astonished that the prime minister can actually look himself in the mirror right now. It is very clear that he told lie after lie after lie about the appointment of Peter Mandelson.
He wanted to make this all about Peter Mandelson. This is about his judgments.
He has been dishonest with parliament and with the country. And Labour MPs, in good conscience, should be looking at whether or not this man should be leading our country.
Proposed law change will protect abusive men who push women to suicide, campaigners warn
Vikram Dodd
Also this morning, justice campaigners say men whose abusive behaviour drives women to take their own lives are more likely to get away with their crimes because of proposed law changes.
Ministers want to make it harder for inquests to pass verdicts of unlawful killing, which have been crucial in getting justice for women who killed themselves after suffering abuse.
In October last year, Georgia Barter was found to have been unlawfully killed after suffering a decade of domestic violence and abuse. In 2023, an inquest found that Kellie Sutton, whose death was classed originally as a suicide, was unlawfully killed after suffering domestic abuse.
The unlawful killing verdicts followed campaigns by the families of the women.
Harriet Wistrich, the head of the Centre for Women’s Justice, said: “We strongly oppose any reversal of the standard of proof for unlawful killing in inquest verdicts, which would set back the cause of highlighting the issue of recognising the role that domestic abuse plays in relation to the suicides of many women.
Read the full report here:
Tories repeat call for Starmer to resign over Mandelson
The Conservative party has repeated calls for the prime minister to resign over the Mandelson scandal.
The Tory deputy chair, Matt Vickers, said Keir Starmer “definitely should go”, telling Sky News:
It is a complete and utter failure of judgment on the part of the prime minister.
Remember when this thing broke, he told us that if he knew then what he knew now, he wouldn’t have made that appointment.
Anybody reading those files knows he knew more than enough not to make this appointment. His own national security adviser warned him about it. He knew that the man who he chose to appoint this country’s most prestigious diplomatic position had links to the worst, most evil paedophile ever to walk the earth. It’s unacceptable.
As a reminder of the key lines from yesterday’s Mandelson files – Keir Starmer overruled officials who warned of a “reputational risk” in making Peter Mandelson US ambassador, despite being handed a dossier of evidence about the peer’s relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The disclosure in newly released files will raise fresh questions about Starmer’s judgment – as well as about the vetting procedures at the highest levels of government.
The files show that Mandelson was offered a highly classified briefing from the Foreign Office (FCDO) even before he finished the formal vetting process.
They also show that two of the government’s most senior security and foreign policy officials – national security adviser Jonathan Powell and FCDO permanent secretary Philip Barton – raised concerns about Mandelson’s appointment due to his involvement in previous public scandals.
Read the full report here:
We have early pictures from the newswires of prime minister Keir Starmer in Belfast this morning, in his first public appearance since the release of the first tranche of documents relating to Peter Mandelson. He is expected to speak to journalists during the visit, before heading to Cork in the Republic of Ireland.
Analysis: Mandelson documents raise questions about Starmer’s decision-making
Pippa Crerar
Four months after Peter Mandelson was sacked as UK ambassador to Washington over his links with Jeffrey Epstein, he sat down for a primetime BBC interview. A less hubristic individual would have long since slunk away into the shadows.
But despite all the condemnation and humiliation surrounding his departure, Mandelson seemed intent on maintaining a public profile. “Who knows what’s next?” he told Laura Kuenssberg. “I don’t know what’s next. I’m not going to disappear and hide – that’s not me”.
For some inside Downing Street, those words sounded as a warning – or even a threat. Peter Mandelson still knows where the bodies are buried and could cause the government – and Keir Starmer in particular – a whole lot of trouble. A man scorned, and all that.
But even were he to take a vow of silence – and he does at least appear to be keeping a lower profile since the police launched their investigation – the prime minister’s decision to appoint Mandelson in the first place is still causing problems that could yet turn into another political storm.
Read Pippa Crerar’s analysis here:
Opening summary: minister admits Mandelson due diligence report raises ‘serious questions’
Good morning and welcome to our coverage of UK politics.
A minister admitted that the due diligence report prepared for Keir Starmer before Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador in 2024 raised “serious questions”.
Asked about the report, which pointed to concerns over the former business secretary’s relationship with the child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Nick Thomas-Symonds told Sky News:
The prime minister then did put those questions to Lord Mandelson. The prime minister has said he was misled. He deeply regrets believing the reassurances he was given.”
That correspondence has not been published because it is subject to an ongoing police investigation.
Thomas-Symonds continued: “He has apologised for believing what was said to him by Peter Mandelson.”
The minister – who holds several roles, including paymaster-general – told the broadcaster that he shares the “the moral outrage” over Mandelson retaining his £75,000 payout after being sacked as ambassador, and called for the disgraced peer to hand the money to a charity.
Mandelson had originally sought a £500,000 payout.
Starmer is expected to face questions from journalists on a visit to Northern Ireland this morning. Stay with us for all the developments.
In other news: