The Mandelson vetting blame-game is causing serious damage to ministerial-civil service relations

Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US has highlighted poor process in government – despite the individual steps of the process seemingly being followed as best understood by the individual parties involved. Keir Starmer indicated privately that he was thinking of appointing Mandelson at the end of 2024, and received a ‘due diligence’ report from the propriety and ethics team in the Cabinet Office ⁷ https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69b13135cdd628b29e3495f8/V1_FINAL.pdf  setting out all the publicly known information about Mandelson and the risks his appointment could pose – from the relationship with Jeffrey Epstein to business links with Russia and China. Starmer then publicly announced Mandelson’s appointment. That Starmer could do so (even if the advice of his cabinet secretary ⁸ https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/2046171111436497050  at the time could be read as advising against it) before any security vetting had taken place is the first failure of process.  

The ‘developed vetting’ (DV) process that Mandelson then went through happened – as is usual process – in two parts. First, UK Security Vetting (a Cabinet Office agency) carried out the interviews and document reviews that comprise ‘vetting’. UK Security vetting compiled a report recommending, it appears, that Mandelson not be granted DV, but Foreign Office officials – who have always had the final say in this process – decided to grant the clearance. That they could make this decision unilaterally, with no political oversight, on such a high-profile appointment, is the second failure of process. That this piece of information was seemingly still not relayed to Starmer after Mandelson was fired, when the prime minister was affirming how due process was followed, is the third.  

The government have recognised this. It has changed the system so that, in future, vetting needs to take place before announcements, and it has removed Foreign Office powers to grant DV against the recommendations of UK security vetting.  

Mandelson’s appointment shows yet again that process is no substitute for judgment

The failures of process matter, but a series of judgment calls lie at the heart of this scandal.  

The initial failure of judgement was Starmer’s choice to make Mandelson ambassador when he, and everyone else in Westminster, knew that the former minister was a lightning rod for controversy, and when the risks of doing so had been set out for the prime minister by the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team. Starmer could have waited for vetting to be completed – thereby removing the enormous pressure on the Foreign Office to find a way to mitigate the risks around an ambassador who the prime minister had already sanctioned. Nothing in the ‘process’ prevented this timeline. He did neither.

Olly Robbins – the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office who has lost his job over the scandal – is expected to say that it was not possible for him to discuss sensitive details of security with ministers. But it would be very surprising if there were not some route through which Robbins could have had a high-level political discussion about these risks. It seems it was a choice for Robbins not to do so during the vetting process, and especially so after Mandelson had been fired and the prime minister was assuring the Commons that “full due process was followed”. Even if true in technical terms, the prime minister should have been made aware at this point at least of the unusual circumstances.

The Mandelson row puts more strain on an already fraught relationship between ministers and civil servants

Robbins’ error in judgement would always have damaged the relationship between ministers and civil servants, not least because of the major political impact it is having on the government. But there was space, when this story broke last week, for a more productive way to respond. No.10 could have found a way to work alongside Robbins to understand the legal advice covering what he could tell ministers about vetting, the political pressure on him to mitigate Mandelson’s security risks, and the standard processes that resulted in the decisions he took. Political expediency, as well as losing the confidence of the prime minister and foreign secretary, would likely still have required Robbins to step down. But Starmer and team could have taken the opportunity to actually understand what was going on, and to change the system for the better.

Instead, ministers have chosen, in the words of Starmer, to be ‘furious’. No.10 has taken an increasingly bullish position over the weekend, stating that Starmer would never have hired Mandelson had he known, and publishing a series of documents to pointedly counter arguments from Robbins’s allies, including an interpretation of the legal basis on which Robbins chose not to share information about vetting with ministers. That has shut down any space for a productive conversation about how ministers and civil servants can work together, and will do nothing to restore low levels of trusts. Civil servants are now, as a result of this approach, far more likely to stick doggedly to process, and to cover their backs by referring even minor decisions to ministers and keeping hold of the receipts of such conversations.  

Robbins made the decision to grant Mandelson clearance in early 2025, weeks after Starmer accused too many civil servants of being “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”. From what we know, it appears as though Robbins – who will set out his account on Tuesday – made a number of errors of judgment when choosing what information to share, and with whom, but it also seems plausible he was doing his best to enact the prime minister’s will in a messy, bureaucratic system, and not to simply point at the barriers in the way to the appointment. The response from No.10 this weekend, pitting this as a battle between ministers and civil servants, has been an error – and one which strikes yet another blow to an already bruised relationship.