Keir Starmer to face sleaze inquiry vote over Peter Mandelson job

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is to face a sleaze inquiry vote in the Commons tomorrow over his selection of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador.

Speaker Lindsay Hoyle will allow a debate on whether the details of the Labour peer’s appointment should be probed, with a vote on whether to refer the case to the privileges committee to follow.

It was a similar series of events that led to Boris Johnson’s departure as Conservative prime minister in 2022 – and this won’t be lost on the Labour leadership.

Lord Mandelson formally became the UK’s ambassador to the US at the start of 2025 but was sacked in September over his friendship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

More recently, it emerged that Lord Mandelson was approved for the role by the Foreign Office, despite objections raised by the Cabinet Office’s security vetting team.

Sir Keir has been accused of misleading MPs in the Commons after repeatedly claiming that “due process” was followed in Lord Mandelson’s appointment.

Opposition figures argue this isn’t true, given security concerns were raised but the appointment still went ahead.

They suggest that, whether or not Starmer knew about those concerns at the time, his statements to Parliament were inaccurate and could amount to a breach of the ministerial code.

Expect references to this ministerial code to dominate Tuesday’s debate. It states that ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament should resign, while those who do so unwittingly must correct the record at the earliest opportunity.

Initially, Sir Keir’s opponents focused on whether he had been informed of any vetting concerns.

However, former Foreign Office head Sir Olly Robbins told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that sharing such details could have undermined the confidentiality of the vetting process, meaning the Prime Minister was not made aware of any red flags at the time.

Attention has shifted to whether Starmer failed to correct the record once he became aware of the problem.

He was informed on Tuesday, April 14, that Lord Mandelson had been approved despite concerns from UK Security Vetting. The next day, at Prime Minister’s Questions, he did not raise the subject, and it only became public when The Guardian broke the story later in the week.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is one of a number of critics to have questioned why MPs were not updated during the PMQs session.

What complicates this all is that not only does the Prime Minister still insist that “due process” was followed in Lord Mandelson’s case, so do the two top civil servants from the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office who appeared in front of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee last week.

But it’s the subsequent decision-making that has sparked controversy. While the Cabinet Office indicated Lord Mandelson had been clearly flagged as unsuitable for the role, Sir Olly understood his case as being “borderline” and judged the risks manageable.

Sir Keir says that due process was followed but fired Sir Olly anyway for not passing on the details of the vetting procedure – even though the now-former civil servant said it would not have been prudent to speak to the Prime Minister about them.

It’s all getting pretty technical. The debate on Tuesday will follow yet more evidence from Sir Olly’ predecessor, Sir Phillip Barton, who was known to have disapproved of the decision to hire Lord Mandelson.

Shortly afterwards, Morgan McSweeney – who was the Prime Minister’s chief of staff until February this year – will appear.

He was a one-time protege of Lord Mandelson and was a strong advocate for his hiring.

Ultimately, it will be unlikely for an inquiry to be launched, given the size of the Labour government’s majority.

A significant number of MPs would need to vote in favour of a probe, or abstain, for one to commence – and while many in the Labour party are unhappy and actively considering who should succeed Sir Keir, the overriding view is that now is not the time for him to go.

A Downing Street spokesperson has called this latest development a “desperate political stunt by the Conservative party the week before the May elections” and added: “The government is engaging with the two parliamentary processes that are already running on Peter Mandelson’s appointment with full transparency.”

Two former Labour cabinet ministers, Alan Johnson and Lord Blunkett, agree. But while little is likely to come from tomorrow’s debate, it will serve to prolong the row over Peter Mandelson and, more consequentially, the Prime Minister’s judgement.