Sir Keir Starmer has said he is “absolutely furious” he was not told that security concerns were raised during Peter Mandelson’ vetting – but there are signs he should have known better.
Before Mandelson’s appointment to the UK’s top diplomatic role in Washington, civil servants in the Government’s propriety and ethics department warned the Prime Minister personally that his pick for the job came with “reputational risk”.
Government and intelligence sources say those risks would have been examined and flagged during Mandelson’s Developed Vetting (DV) process. DV is the highest level of UK government security clearance, required for access to top secret assets or intelligence.
What vetting would have found
When asked what a DV process would have found, sources pointed to the Government’s earlier due diligence report from December 2024.
This was completed by the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team and warned of the risks associated with Mandelson’s business ties with Russia and China, as well as his relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
In a document headed “Advice to the Prime Minister” on 4 December2024, officials noted a “general reputational risk” regarding Mandelson’s connection to Epstein. The document made reference to the fact the pair remained in contact after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from an underage girl.
It also noted media reports detailing the extensive relationship between the two and business relationships held until 2014.
Three intelligence sources have told The i Paper that they stand by claims that a “full and proper” check would have the means to identify payments from Epstein to Mandelson held by US counterparts, which have since been exposed in the Epstein files.
The financier paid $75,000 (£55,000) into accounts connected to Mandelson in 2003 and 2004. Mandelson claims he has no record of such payments.
Details of these financial payments would have been requested from US counterparts and investigated by officials, the sources said.
The Cabinet Office report also noted that Mandelson’s lobbying firm, Global Counsel, was a “reputational risk” citing open-source material about the firm’s work for Chinese clients, such as TikTok and Shein.
The report advised that any “interest in his lobbying firm Global Counsel would have to cease” if Mandelson was appointed as the UK’s ambassador to Washington.
However, Mandelson retained his interests in the lobbying firm until at least six months after he ascended into the role in February 2025. While he had resigned as a director of Global Counsel in May 2024 and entered into an agreement to sell his stake in the business over time, he still held a 21 per cent stake in September 2025, according to corporate filings.
Starmer was also warned about Mandelson’s role as a non-executive director of the Russian conglomerate Sistema, a majority shareholder of RTI – a defence technology firm which civil servants noted had “produced radar and satellite communications for Russia’s land-based missile[s]”.
Despite the Cabinet Office report, the Prime Minister’s then-Private Secretary, Nin Pandit, asked the Foreign Office to press on with the appointment – including the DV process – “at pace” so that Mandelson could be in post before Donald Trump’s second inauguration as president in early 2025.
How the vetting process works – and what it gives access to
The DV process is designed to delve into the personal and professional habits of a candidate to identify anything which could be weaponised by a hostile foreign adversary to blackmail or coerce the individual into sharing the top-secret information.
It is carried out by a Cabinet Office body called United Kingdom Security Vetting (UKSV) and involves forensic background checks and an interview with a vetting officer to probe into every aspect of a candidate’s life. Foreign travel, relationship difficulties, problems gambling, alongside drug-taking and even pornography habits are all examined.
UKSV then sends its findings to the Whitehall department sponsoring the checks, in this case the Foreign Office. The security director or Permanent Under-Secretary – Olly Robbins in this instance – then makes a vetting decision based on the UKSV report and recommendation.
Professor Frances Tammer of the University of Exeter previously worked in the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office where she held DV continuously for 40 years. She said it is “very important to ensure the process is rigorous” and claimed the decision “put not only UK and other foreign nations secrets at risk, but ultimately affected the reputation of the UK Government”.
Sometimes mitigations for DV can be put in place to allow for any identified risks associated with an individual while still allowing them into post.
In Mandelson’s case, he was reportedly given DV clearance despite the recommendation from UKSV advising against it, a decision the Prime Minister says he wasn’t informed about. Robbins, the top civil servant in the Foreign Office, has effectively been sacked as a result.
Questions over the vetting timeline remain
Robbins was placed in the Foreign Office on 8 January 2025, weeks after Mandelson’s appointment and two days after the former Labour peer had already been given a classified Government briefing.
An email from the Foreign Office which CC’d then-Permanent Under-Secretary Philip Barton invited Mandelson to a briefing on “higher tiers” – a term which security sources told The i Paper referred to classified material – on 6 January.
Within a week, the Government’s pick for Washington was walking through Whitehall with a lanyard showing his DV clearance. However, a formal email notifying him of his DV status wasn’t sent until later that month.
A UK Intelligence source said that if the “strategic direction” given to the Foreign Office from Downing Street was to approve Mandelson then “I believe the Permanent Under-Secretary would have taken a ‘make it so’ attitude” whether he agreed or not.
They added that details around UKSV recommendations are kept purposefully vague to protect private details and that Robbins would not have been aware of why Mandelson failed vetting.
A Foreign Office source said the appointment of Mandelson was a “political decision” by the Prime Minister, “therefore the civil service would be charged with enacting that decision”. It was “a case of ‘Ministers decide and the civil service enacts’,” they said.
On 4 February, Mandelson received a further letter from the Government informing him that he required Strap – a regime that regulates access to sensitive intelligence material – on top of his DV clearance.
A former Cabinet Office official said a STRAP security officer will give STRAP, “but check if there are caveats on DV” meaning the person is not cleared to work on issues relating to a particular country or issue.
The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, Darren Jones, confirmed he had changed the rules to prevent the Foreign Office from being able to overrule security recommendations, on Friday.
Jones stated that “due process” was followed in Mandelson’s appointment, adding that he was “quite frankly flabbergasting,” to learn the Foreign Office could go against recommendations.
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