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1. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Saqib Bhatti

   Lord Mandelson

   Well, it is not bizarre, because we have been here many times before. The Government have been dragged along time after time, scandal after scandal. I say to Government Back Benchers: this is a Prime Minister who is flailing. He has admitted, after months and months of pushing, that he knew—he knew about the relationship that Mandelson had with Epstein, and yet he thought it was a risk worth taking anyway. I made this point earlier, but that “risk” was not just in denigrating the experience of the victims; it was in marching all those Labour Members up the hill and risking their careers. We are Members of Parliament; it is okay that we care about our careers, wherever they may end up, but the truth is that the Prime Minister did not care about them. That journey is not over yet, because he is going to use those people over and over again; he will throw other people under the bus before he throws his chief of staff under the bus—but that will happen too, I can almost guarantee it.

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2. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Saqib Bhatti

   Lord Mandelson

   My right hon. Friend’s exasperation is exactly the exasperation that the British public will be feeling as they read the headlines. That is how they have felt as the stories have unfolded over the last few days and months. This speaks to a fundamental point: the toxicity at No. 10. The rot starts at the top. Labour Members have the authority and the power to do something about this. The relationship that Mandelson was obvious to all of us. It was obvious to us when the Prime Minister appointed him to one of the most important positions in our country—and to a position in one of the most important capitals in the world—but the Prime Minister did it anyway, because he thought it was a risk worth taking.

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3. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Saqib Bhatti

   Lord Mandelson

   My hon. Friend always makes excellent points. I was going to talk about Gordon Brown later, but I will do so now. He raised the question back in September. He wanted to know what had gone on, and he was batted away. Has the Minister asked the Cabinet Secretary why the former Prime Minister was batted away? Did that former Prime Minister not have enough respect in No. 10 to get a legitimate answer about what went down? The public deserve to know, and this House deserves to know. I want to make another point about integrity, which was raised by a number of Members earlier, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith). The Prime Minister, by his own admission, has called into question the integrity of every Member of this House. We all know that trust in politicians is at an all-time low—we see it on the doorstep and in our inboxes. I was at a birthday party with my four-and-a-half-year-old son at the weekend. I was chatting to some parents, and the Mandelson headlines came up. I had to say, “Look, it’s not normal for a billionaire to fly politicians out. We have a pretty strict expenses regime following the expenses scandal.” We cannot move left or right, yet the British public do not trust us, because they think that we take them for granted. I had to explain to those parents that it is not normal to be invited to islands and to have luxuries thrown at you. This was not normal behaviour, yet the Prime Minister knew about this relationship and let it happen. That is a really important point.

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4. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Saqib Bhatti

   Lord Mandelson

   I find it disgusting. What Epstein did was absolutely disgusting in its own right: he trafficked, he was a child sex offender, and in many ways he was a coward in how he left this world. I wish he had faced the full force of the law. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet) talked about enablers and the role that powerful men played. I say to Labour Members that they are at a crossroads. If they really care about Epstein’s victims, they need to ask how this was allowed to happen. By the way, it is not just about Mandelson and Epstein. My hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) made a point about Bill Gates. I watched the video of Melinda Gates yesterday, and I was talking to my wife about how horrible it must have been to see the emails and what he was up to. My hon. Friend also mentioned Richard Branson. The reality is that there is clearly a culture of men who thought they were above the law, and the DOJ is grappling with that issue over in America. We have talked about some very important things in today’s debate, for which I commend hon. Members, but we have to be honest about the fact that this matter came on to our shores. It is possible that there are victims whom we still do not know about, and that criminal investigations still need to happen. I need an assurance from Ministers that if that comes to the fore, the Government will act quickly to make sure that criminal investigations are started. The public require that to help us on the journey towards rebuilding trust, and we should not underestimate the need for that.

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5. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Saqib Bhatti

   Lord Mandelson

   The Prime Minister has brought his judgment into question. The Opposition have been saying that for a couple of years—Oppositions do that—but on this issue, he has marched everyone up the hill and Ministers have gone out to defend him on this issue time and again. His position really is now untenable. I guarantee Labour Members that when they go home and talk to their constituents, they will have to answer questions about why the Prime Minister allowed this to happen.

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6. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Saqib Bhatti

   Lord Mandelson

   I will leave Labour Members to reflect on that because many have spoken up today, but I say once again that they are just words if there is no action. The judgment of the Prime Minister is deeply, deeply flawed. He alone is responsible for the culture at No. 10. I ran a business. If something was going wrong, the buck stopped with me. He alone is responsible for the culture at No. 10. It is not Morgan McSweeney. He enabled Morgan McSweeney. He needs to be held accountable for his relationship. We need to see the emails and we need to see what the conversations were—that is why this is important—but the buck stops with the Prime Minister.

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7. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Saqib Bhatti

   Lord Mandelson

   I will end with two responses to that intervention. First, my right hon. Friend is obviously absolutely right. I say to Labour Members, who were shaking their heads, that every decision—every decision—the Government have made is brought into question by the lack of judgment the Prime Minister has shown. I stood at the Dispatch Box and repeatedly called for a national grooming inquiry. I am a British-Pakistani Muslim male. I have two sons. I want them to grow up without aspersions being cast on them. One day, I hope to have a daughter—apologies to my wife—and I want her to grow up in a safe environment. We have to be honest and we have to be strong in making those calls. I say to the Minister, as he answers those questions, that the question about the ISC is really important. We need to know that under the amendment, it will have the full authority to deal with what comes in front of it, so that we and the public can make a judgment. Secondly, why did Gordon Brown’s calls fall on deaf ears? Why was he not given the respect, as a former Prime Minister, of his calls being dealt with? Was Mandelson so strong that, despite his toxicity, he was protected and enabled? Finally—I have made this point repeatedly—the judgment of the Prime Minister surely has to be in question. We will now find out what else was known. The Minister has the opportunity to share anything else that he might want to share at the Dispatch Box.

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8. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Saqib Bhatti

   Lord Mandelson

   My right hon. Friend is making a serious and important point. She has talked about how she ended up in this place, and I do not think anyone should denigrate all the hard work she has done to achieve what she has.

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9. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

   Construction Industry Training Board: Funding

   Does the hon. Member agree that losing the skills and expertise of local training groups, such as the Plymouth Construction Training Group, which was formed in 1977 and has been funded by the CITB, and instead having centralised delivery from CITB in London, would be a retrograde step that risks us losing local construction skills?

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10. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Construction Industry Training Board: Funding

    I welcome the funding that the Minister has just outlined. Reference has been made to mayoral strategic authorities, but vast parts of the country do not have one yet and are unlikely to have one for some time. Indeed, my constituency and that of the hon. Member for Exeter (Steve Race) are in one of those regions. I am interested in how the funding will be delivered to where it is really needed in those smaller communities. At the moment, we have 124 training groups doing that, and ultimately they are best placed to know the workforce in their local areas. In those smaller communities that have not yet seen that devolution, how can we ensure that we do not see those skills just drop out of the bottom of the sector?

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11. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Rebecca Paul

    Postal Services: Rural Areas

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and to respond on behalf of the Opposition. I sincerely congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) on securing this debate and on the incredible persistence with which he has fought for his constituents. As my hon. Friend made clear, a functioning postal service is not a nice-to-have in rural Britain; rather, it is part of the vital infrastructure of daily life. The post is how people receive medical letters, time-sensitive official correspondence and the things they cannot simply pick up on the high street. For small businesses, farms and sole traders, it is how goods, invoices and documents move. We should not underestimate the harms when this important service fails. I want to cover two linked issues: the resilience of the post office network; and the reliability of deliveries and the way that failures fall hardest on rural areas. As of October 2025, there were about 11,638 post office branches in the UK, and the company is committed to maintaining about 11,500 branches. The Post Office is publicly owned, but the vast majority of branches are run by independent postmasters inside local shops. In my experience, that is why they are so deeply woven into rural life, and why, when a branch closes, the town or village feels it immediately and deeply. The network is supposed to be underpinned by access criteria, including a requirement that 95% of the rural population should be within three miles of a post office, and that 95% of the population of every postcode district should be within six miles of one. Even remote communities have a minimum level of access. Those are sensible measures of access, and it is therefore deeply concerning that the Department for Business and Trade Green Paper on the future of the Post Office explicitly asks whether to keep the existing requirement, remove the minimum 11,500 branch requirement or replace it with a different framework altogether. Rural Britain has heard that language before: “a different way of meeting obligations” is often a Whitehall euphemism for a quiet downgrade under which the network looks stable on paper but becomes thinner in practice, with reduced hours, reduced services and longer journeys for those without cars. Although the Government appear to be drifting, the Conservative party is clear about what the Post Office is for. It is more than a business; it is part of the UK’s social and economic fabric, especially in rural areas, and especially as bank branches continue to vanish from our high streets. For many communities, the post office is now the most realistic place to do basic banking, withdraw cash or deposit takings. There is also a straightforward point about support. The nationwide network, especially in rural areas, will not always be commercially viable based on pure retail footfall alone. That is why public funding has played a role. The Conservative Government provided more than £2.5 billion in funding in the past decade to sustain the nationwide network, including support for branches in uncommercial areas. That turned out to be money well spent, in the light of the ongoing use of the post office network. Post office data shows record levels of cash deposits at branches and significant use by both personal and business customers, alongside the roll-out of banking hubs operated in partnership with Cash Access UK. When the Minister responds, I hope we will hear some reassurance about the support for the post office network. Can we have a commitment today to retaining a minimum network size of at least 11,500 branches? Will we keep the rural and postcode district access criteria and will sub-postmasters be properly supported so that rural branches do not become financially untenable? I now turn to deliveries, which is where constituents, including my own, are impacted when the service breaks down. The universal postal service is a promise that has been repeatedly broken. In October 2025, Ofcom fined Royal Mail £21 million for missing its 2024-25 delivery targets, finding that only 77% of first-class mail and 92.5% of second-class mail was delivered on time, far below the long-standing universal service targets. Ofcom has since moved to reform parts of the universal service obligation, including allowing second-class letters to be delivered on alternate weekdays Monday to Friday and adjusting headline targets while introducing new backstop measures designed to prevent extreme delays. There is a legitimate discussion to be had about sustainability and falling letter volumes, but reform must not become cover for a two-tier Britain where rural residents simply wait longer as a matter of course. The focus must now be on delivery offices, staffing and day-to-day operational reality. In my own Reigate constituency we face ongoing concerns about the standard of postal services in the village of Banstead. Constituents have raised this with me repeatedly since the general election, and with good reason. A key issue appears to be staffing. Royal Mail has admitted to higher than normal levels of sickness and vacancies, and when I visited the delivery office that serves Banstead it was clear that morale there was extremely low. Meanwhile there is an operational inefficiency built in. Banstead is served by a delivery office based in Epsom, meaning staff travel before rounds even begin. I think we can all guess what that leads to. One constituent received 10 items of post on 30 January after receiving none in the preceding 10 days. Others report the same pattern of long gaps followed by sudden floods. If that is the experience of a well-connected part of Surrey, it should shock no one that deeply rural areas are hit even harder. My hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire highlighted severe delays in his constituency. The frustration felt by his constituents is wholly understandable. So what should happen next? First, the Minister should make it clear that regulatory fines are not the end of the story. Ofcom’s enforcement action was accompanied by requirements for Royal Mail to take corrective steps. The Government should press for transparent reporting at delivery office level with a particular focus on rural performance so that communities can see whether their service is improving and where the problems sit. Secondly, Ministers must ensure that any future changes to the universal service protect rural users. If second class is delivered less often, that should not translate into worse outcomes for rural areas. Backstop measures are welcome, but they must be enforced and felt in places that have been left behind. People do not care about clever statistics if their letters still arrive late, in clumps, or not at all. Thirdly, the Government should recognise the interdependence of the system. The post office is not a shop counter; it is part of the national postal infrastructure, so any reform must be judged by a simple test: does it improve the lived experience of rural users? I will end by returning to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire, who has done what good MPs should do: listened locally, engaged with the operators and brought the issue to Parliament for debate. To be clear, neither he nor rural Britain are asking for special treatment. They are asking for fairness and competence. A letter posted in this country should arrive when the sender is told it will arrive. A rural post office branch should not be quietly allowed to wither. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope we will hear some meaningful commitments on the issues today.

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12. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Paul Holmes

    Lord Mandelson

    The hon. Gentleman has just said that he thinks it is absolutely right that this House focuses on Peter Mandelson’s links with Jeffrey Epstein, and I welcome him for suddenly coming to that conclusion. Can I therefore ask him why the Prime Minister felt it necessary to appoint Mandelson as the US ambassador when—we know this after this afternoon’s revelation—the Prime Minister knew that Mandelson still had a relationship with Epstein?

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13. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Paul Holmes

    Lord Mandelson

    The hon. Gentleman’s speech is coming across to me as quite miraculous, and not in a good way. He is claiming that his Front Benchers have shown leadership this afternoon. Let us remind the House exactly what has happened: his party’s leadership and Front Benchers have changed their amendment to the motion, because they knew that Government Members would not have voted for it.

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14. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Paul Holmes

    Lord Mandelson

    According to reports, it is worse than that: Peter Mandelson had his fingertips throughout the whole of the Labour party, but also the Government. There are reports that after the Prime Minister had realised he had had a continuing relationship with Epstein, Mandelson was in No. 10 during the Cabinet reshuffle of 5 September, so he had a direct role in appointing half the Cabinet, has he not?

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15. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Paul Holmes

    Lord Mandelson

    In response to the intervention from my right hon. Friend Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke), there is a key difference between this Prime Minister and former Labour Prime Ministers, in that Gordon Brown and Tony Blair appointed Peter Mandelson without knowing some of the connections that he had. The key difference is that this Prime Minister knew and still did it. There is still a Labour Prime Minister with integrity, and that is Gordon Brown, who actually took things to the police. This Prime Minister did no such thing.

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16. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Paul Holmes

    Lord Mandelson

    On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Forgive me for detaining the House, but may I ask for your clarification on whether a Member saying that somebody in this House has been bought and paid for is in order?

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17. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Paul Holmes

    Lord Mandelson

    As usual, my hon. Friend is making a good speech. I was a special adviser at the Cabinet Office—a great Department with great civil servants. She mentions the cases of Jonathan Powell, and of Lord Mandelson as Deputy Prime Minister. Does she agree that this backhanded way of conducting Government business, without officials present, puts pressure on our great civil servants, and places them in difficult situations? It is not how Government should be run.

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18. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Paul Holmes

    Lord Mandelson

    My hon. Friend will recall that during various parliamentary debates in the Chamber on Peter Mandelson, and despite the Prime Minister knowing that he had that relationship, at one stage she and I asked the Minister the simple question of whether the Government would strip Lord Mandelson of the Labour Whip. That question was refused an answer, and they did not remove the Whip. Does that not show a constant lack of action from a Prime Minister who does not have a grip?

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19. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Paul Holmes

    Lord Mandelson

    I really must push the Minister, because he is giving conflicting messages. At one stage, he said that the direct contract award will be in scope of the ISC, without committing to any timescales. He has now said that the scope of the release of documents is a matter for the Cabinet Secretary, with no political involvement. As a political Minister, he has stood at the Dispatch Box to say that the direct contract award will be in scope. Will it be in scope or not?

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20. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Neil O'Brien

    Lord Mandelson

    This has been an absolutely extraordinary day in British politics. It is not often that there is an audible intake of breath in this Chamber, but we all heard it earlier—that gasp when the Prime Minister admitted that, yes, he had known that Peter Mandelson had had an ongoing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein when he appointed him as our ambassador to Washington. It was a truly extraordinary admission. The argument that the Prime Minister is now making, which is quite incredible, is that he knew, but he did not know the depth and extent. That implies that there is some reasonable extent to which a person can be in a long-term relationship with the world’s most famous paedophile and still be appointed our ambassador to Washington. It implies that a person can, to a certain reasonable depth, be involved with the world’s most corrupt man and still be appointed His Majesty’s ambassador. The Prime Minister is now asking to be taken on trust. Well, after this whole sordid affair, I am afraid that is just not good enough any more. The Prime Minister knew that Mandelson had stayed in Epstein’s house while he was in jail for child prostitution. Did that not set some alarm bells ringing in the Prime Minister’s mind, or is that not deep enough a relationship to have worried him? My right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith) told the House earlier that the British Government were warned by one of our closest international allies about their deep concerns before Mandelson’s appointment. Did that not set some alarm bells ringing in the Prime Minister’s mind? No, instead he appointed a man who twice had to resign over corruption, and now—unbelievably—his argument is, “If only there had been some sign that Peter Mandelson was like this?” It is unbelievable, and this may be just the beginning. We now really need the Minister to answer a specific point that Ministers ducked and refused to address earlier—the whole House will hear if he does not answer. Will the Government agree to a full investigation into Mandelson’s behaviour while he was our ambassador in Washington? On 27 February last year, Mandelson arranged for the Prime Minister to meet Palantir—a client of Mandelson’s company, Global Counsel. That meeting was not recorded in the PM’s register of meetings and emerged only later. Palantir was then awarded a £240 million contract by the Government as a direct award rather than through a competition. We need the Cabinet Secretary to examine the circumstances of that contract. Does the Minister agree—yes or no? Why was that prime ministerial meeting not recorded in the normal way? How many more such lobbyist meetings were there? What other inside information was shared with Mandelson’s clients? Will the Minister now agree to a full inquiry into Mandelson’s time as our ambassador—yes or no? Furthermore, can the Minister reassure the House that the proper process has been followed for all No. 10’s other recent appointments? Can he give the House that reassurance very clearly? Before I come to the manuscript amendment, let me say something positive about some of the contributions we have heard today from Labour Back Benchers. The hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop) gave a genuinely superb speech, in which he said that he would not be able to look victims in the eye if he voted for the Government’s amendment. It was a brave speech, but he was not completely alone. We also heard sensible comments from other Labour Back Benchers, including the hon. Members for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon), for Widnes and Halewood (Derek Twigg) and for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald), and the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), all of whom pointed out that the Government’s cover-up amendment was simply not going to fly. I think the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) actually said that she would be ashamed to vote for it, and she was totally right. All those Labour Back Benchers have shown their character today, but what a contrast with the Prime Minister’s behaviour. He is not here, and he has still not apologised for appointing Mandelson. A few hours ago he was telling this House that these documents could not be published—he said at PMQs that the Leader of the Opposition was outrageous and silly for even asking—yet here we are, just a few hours later, and the Government have had a total U-turn because they know that they cannot get their own people to vote for this shameful proposed cover-up. The Prime Minister has not been decisive—he only sacked Peter Mandelson because we forced him to. He said again and again that he had full confidence in him, and I think many voters will be thinking, “Why on earth was the Prime Minister so deeply in hock to this man?” The truth is that Mandelson was not out on a limb over in Washington; he was a deeply embedded part of the Prime Minister’s operation. He was involved in the selection of some of the MPs who are in the Chamber today. He was involved in the Prime Minister’s reshuffle, and was part of the “toxic culture” in No. 10 that the Health Secretary—the Labour Health Secretary—has warned about. Most shamefully of all, a former Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, tried to get documents about some of the things that Peter Mandelson had done and was rebuffed. Funnily enough, those documents could not be found. Whatever people think of Gordon Brown, if they are choosing Peter Mandelson over him, they are making the wrong decision. I now come to the manuscript amendment that has been hastily produced by the Government. For the people watching at home, this is an amendment to an amendment—a U-turn on top of a U-turn. Given the chaos we have seen from the Government, we now need three clear assurances, and we will all be listening to the Minister when he comes to the Dispatch Box. First, we need an assurance that everything that people in No. 10 do not want to publish will be sent to the ISC in unredacted form. Secondly, we need an assurance that it will be the ISC, not No. 10, that determines the handling of those documents. This comes back to the very good question posed by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington: if the ISC says that documents deemed sensitive by No. 10 can be released, will it be able to release them without any veto from No. 10?

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21. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Neil O'Brien

    Lord Mandelson

    I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I want to know whether the Minister agrees that the ISC should be able to give the gist of documents, even if they are not fully released. Thirdly on this hastily proposed manuscript amendment, can we be reassured that we will not be waiting for months—that this will not turn out like the grooming gangs, where nothing happens in the end? Can we have an assurance that we will not be waiting for ages, and that there will be a clear and short timeframe for getting the documents published and to the ISC?

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22. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Neil O'Brien

    Lord Mandelson

    My hon. Friend makes an excellent point—he is completely correct. Today, I actually feel quite a lot of sympathy for Labour Back Benchers. Once again, they have been put in a totally impossible position by the Prime Minister and his adviser Morgan McSweeney. The Government wanted the same people who had appointed Mandelson in the first place to be able to control the release of information about the extraordinary way in which that appointment was made. I feel for Labour Back Benchers, because those people in Downing Street are the same people who told them they had to vote to cut the winter fuel payment because there would be a run on the pound if they did not. They are the same people in No. 10 who told Labour Back Benchers that they would not change their position on the family farm tax, and then—after people had killed themselves—changed their position on it. They are the same people who got Labour Back Benchers to vote against an inquiry into grooming gangs. That is telling, because that was another occasion on which this weak Prime Minister put his own political interests ahead of respecting victims. Today, we learned a little bit more about the character of our Prime Minister. As a result, it is clear from listening to the debate today that even some Labour MPs are asking themselves the same question as the public out there: doesn’t this country deserve better?

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23. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Lord Mandelson

    Order. Before the right hon. Member responds, let me say that we have a very healthy number of Members wishing to contribute, so can we make sure that interventions are short? I assume that you will be coming to your conclusion shortly, Dame Emily Thornberry.

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24. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mrs Kemi Badenoch

    Engagements

    The whole House will be disgusted by the latest revelations about Jeffrey Epstein. All of us want to see his victims get justice, but the political decision to appoint Epstein’s close associate, Peter Mandelson, as Britain’s ambassador to Washington goes to the very heart of this Prime Minister’s judgment. When he made that appointment, was he aware that Mandelson had continued his friendship even after Epstein’s conviction for child prostitution?

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25. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mrs Kemi Badenoch

    Engagements

    I asked the Prime Minister a very specific question. Did he know that Mandelson had continued his friendship with Epstein after the conviction? He says, “If I knew then what I know now”—but he did know. In January 2024, a journalist from the Financial Times informed the Prime Minister that Mandelson had stayed in Epstein’s house even after that conviction for child prostitution. Did the Prime Minister conveniently forget this fact, or did he decide that it was a risk worth taking?

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26. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mrs Kemi Badenoch

    Engagements

    I will come to the Humble Address in a moment, but the Prime Minister cannot blame the process. He did know. It was on Google. If the Conservative research department could find this information out, why couldn’t No. 10? On 10 September, when we knew this, I asked the Prime Minister about it at the Dispatch Box, and he gave Mandelson his full confidence—not once but twice. He only sacked him after pressure from us. I am asking the Prime Minister something very specific, not about the generalities of the full extent. Can the Prime Minister tell us: did the official security vetting that he received mention Mandelson’s ongoing relationship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein?

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27. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mrs Kemi Badenoch

    Engagements

    What the Prime Minister has just said is shocking. How can he stand up there saying that he knew, but that he just asked Peter Mandelson if the security vetting was true or false? This was a man who had been sacked from Cabinet twice already for unethical behaviour. That is absolutely shocking. That is why, later today, my party will call on the Government to release all documents relating to Mandelson’s appointment, not just the ones the Prime Minister wants us to see; this Government are trying to sabotage that release with an amendment to let him choose what we see—the man who appointed Mandelson in the first place. Labour MPs now have to decide if they want to be accessories to his cover-up. Can the Prime Minister guarantee that he will not remove the Whip if they refuse to vote for his whitewash amendment?

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28. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mrs Kemi Badenoch

    Engagements

    The Prime Minister is talking about national security. The national security issue was appointing Mandelson in the first place. What he has said about the Humble Address is a red herring. Let me tell those Labour MPs who were not here in the last Parliament: Humble Addresses already exempt genuine national security issues. This is not about national security; this is about the Prime Minister’s job security. His amendment lets him withhold anything to do with international relations, but this whole appointment is to do with international relations, so if Government Members are voting for it, they are voting for the cover-up. If the Prime Minister is serious about national security concerns, he should ask the Intelligence and Security Committee to decide which documents should be released. Will he commit to doing so here and now?

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29. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mrs Kemi Badenoch

    Engagements

    If that was really the case, the Prime Minister would not mind if the ISC had a look. Let us be clear: he says the involvement of the Cabinet Secretary makes the process non-political, but that does not make it independent. What we want is an independent look. The ISC is independent, whereas the Cabinet Secretary works for him. We know that there will be a cover-up, because this matter implicates the Prime Minister and his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, a protégé of Peter Mandelson. The Prime Minister chose to inject Mandelson’s poison into the heart of his Government on the advice of Morgan McSweeney. His catastrophic lack of judgment—he is telling us now that he did know—has harmed the special relationship. It has endangered national security—it is not the Humble Address; it is him—compromised our diplomacy, and embarrassed our nation. After all this, does he have the same full confidence in Morgan McSweeney that he had in Peter Mandelson?

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30. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mr Andrew Snowden

    Lord Mandelson

    We know the decision that was made. Peter Mandelson was appointed ambassador when it was known that there was a relationship with a convicted paedophile, but it was “worth the risk”. So what is “worth the risk”? What level of relationship with a paedophile is acceptable? Is it coffee in the morning, or dinner at night? There should be no relationship with a convicted paedophile.

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31. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mike Wood

    Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration

    I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) on securing this important and timely debate. The situation is an entirely unforced error by Capita, and it has caused real and significant financial distress to thousands of former public servants—people who dedicated their working lives to serving this country. The people affected are individuals who planned responsibly for retirement and relied on the integrity of the civil service pension scheme, but have been left anxious, frustrated and, in many cases, desperate. Like other hon. Members, I have had several constituents contact me to say that they have been left without any income to fall back on. Mark contacted Capita several times at the start of this year without any reply at all, and he now finds that none of the links in the previous letters and emails from MyCSP work anymore. There was no transition. In many of the cases reported by colleagues from across the country, those affected are suffering missed mortgage payments, unpaid bills and the indignity of having to borrow money simply to get by. That should never happen to anyone who has served the public in good faith.

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32. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mike Wood

    Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration

    I am sure that the hon. Lady will accept that because I was not a Minister in the previous Government, I did not have access to the tendering process, and do not have the details of the bid. However, there was a clear failure by the previous providers and there have been many opportunities since the last general election to review that contract in light of the clear failure—

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33. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mike Wood

    Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration

    No. The hon. Gentleman is obviously trying to hide from the fact that his party was part of the Government that awarded that contract in 2012 to the mutual joint venture. He may wish to look at his own party’s part in that if he thinks that it was a mistake. Sadly, the information provided by the Minister for the Cabinet Office to the House last week fell well short of what is required. It failed to address the fundamental question of how the Government allowed Capita to take over the contract in December despite the repeated warnings and the signs that it had clearly failed in its key milestones.

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34. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mike Wood

    Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration

    I must continue, because I have only a short time; I have given way twice. We know that in November 2023, Capita was awarded the contract to administer the civil service pension scheme, but we also know that the previous administrator, MyCSP, had its contract extended until December 2025 specifically to allow for a two-year transition period that was meant to reduce risk, not create it. The National Audit Office investigation report published in June 2025 made it clear that MyCSP had failed to meet agreed service levels in the final year of its contract, with complaints more than doubling towards the end of that contract. That is a large part of the reason why the contract was awarded elsewhere. If I may briefly refer to the tragic case of Philippa—not a constituent but someone who I had the pleasure of meeting because she was the long-term partner of a member of staff of one of our colleagues.

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35. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mike Wood

    Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration

    I have already given way twice and I may give way later, but I need to get through my speech so that the Minister can reply, because I know that hon. Members will want to hear her response. Philippa retired in May and suffered a nervous collapse triggered by pension delay. Tragically, Philippa died on Boxing day, so that is the very real human cost. Of course, the National Audit Office report did not stop with the failings of the final years of MyCSP’s contract. It also highlighted that Capita had failed to meet three of the six key transition milestones that were due by March 2025, all relating to scheme design and operational readiness. In other words, the warning signs were there in black and white. Ministers were on notice of the potential for serious problems, and of the consequences that those problems would have for pensioners, for at least the final half of 2025.

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36. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mike Wood

    Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration

    As I have said, I did not see the details of the bid. Obviously, with any bid, it is right to look at previous performance. There will be some causes for concern with any of the bidders for large Government contracts because of the complexity of those contracts.

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37. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mike Wood

    Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration

    I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman has not always been an uncritical friend of the current Government, but he has to recognise that his party has been in government for more than a year and a half, during which there were opportunities to take action if they were unhappy with our contract. As I said, the warning signs were there in black and white. Ministers were on notice of the potential for problems and their consequences. Despite that, on 7 July last year—a full year into this Government—the permanent secretary told the Public Accounts Committee that the Cabinet Office would decide in December whether Capita should take over administration. On 14 November 2025, the Cabinet Office wrote to trade unions confirming that Capita would indeed take over from 1 December, stating that it was satisfied—this Government, this permanent secretary and this Minister’s Department were satisfied—that Capita had taken on board the findings of those reports. Serious questions have to be answered. What assurances were provided by Capita to Ministers before that final decision was taken at the end of last year? What scrutiny was applied to those assurances and by whom? Why, in his letter to colleagues, did the Minister for the Cabinet Office claim that these issues had only come to his attention “in recent weeks” when both the National Audit Office report in June and the Public Accounts Committee report in October warned of a “clear risk” that Capita would not be ready? The Public Accounts Committee was clear that Capita had missed seven out of its eight key transitional milestones to deliver its IT system and said: “The Cabinet Office needs to fully develop contingency plans”. If the Minister is right that he was only made aware of these problems in recent weeks, should the Government not have known far sooner and acted far sooner? Although it is welcome that interest-free hardship loans are now available, this action has clearly come too late. Those loans should have been made available on an emergency basis from 1 December—the same day that Capita took over administration—so that people were not left in financial limbo. Instead, some pensioners have reported being forced to take out costly commercial loans or to borrow from friends and family simply to cover basic living costs. That is unacceptable. Can the Minister guarantee that no one affected will face further disruption beyond the end of this month? Can she guarantee that pension payments will be stabilised fully and permanently? The warning signs were there for months, and the failure to act decisively after the publication of the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee reports is stark. Although it is deeply disappointing that the Government failed to prevent this from happening, we can all agree that it is now in everyone’s interest—

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38. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mike Wood

    Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration

    I have given way four times; I really ought to conclude. We can all agree that it is now in everyone’s interest for operational stability to be restored as quickly as possible, for the Government to ensure rigorously and transparently that Capita meets its contractual obligations consistently and that any penalty clauses in the contract that can be enforced are enforced to allow for compensation to be paid to those affected. Above all, we owe it to those affected—public servants who did everything asked of them—to put this right and ensure that such a failure does not happen again.

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39. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mark Pritchard

    Postal Services: Rural Areas

    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) on securing this timely and much-needed debate. I had a 10-minute speech, but I think that has gone by the wayside with the three-minute limit. What we have heard today is the strength of our constituency parliamentary system: Members across this House listening to their constituents—through emails, telephone calls or the occasional letter, when it arrives—and being told from the ground up about the catastrophic failure of the current Royal Mail delivery service. Why is that happening? We have heard already that Royal Mail is prioritising parcels, and I have heard that, too. Clearly that is because it makes more money from parcel deliveries. We heard from the hon. Member for Corby and East Northamptonshire (Lee Barron)—again, it shows the strength of Parliament, for all its flaws and faults, that we all come from different backgrounds and draw on those experiences—that, in his experience, this is the worst it has been. In my 21 years in this House, I have never had to raise a point of order, ask an oral departmental question, attend a debate like this or meet with the Minister, as I will next week, to talk about Royal Mail and postal delivery services—never. By the way, that is high praise for Royal Mail and all the fantastic posties we know in our communities. We can all agree that this is not about posties; it is about the senior management of Royal Mail and corporate decision making at the very highest level, which I believe is perhaps a deliberate strategy to upset the Government and Ofcom so that Royal Mail can be in a position to discard the letter delivery service, because it is not profitable enough. As we have heard from hon. Members, there are real-life consequences. I do not have time to mention all my examples, but I will mention the following, relating to health: “Your letter”—my letter— “informing us of what steps you have taken took nine days to arrive from the date on the letterhead. We appear to only receive three or four deliveries” a month. Another reads as follows: “A hospital letter has not been received although being sent second week in January—from the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.” Another reads: “I am still missing a Test Results letter from the NHS posted on 13th January. They confirmed it was posted by the department when I called after 2 weeks.” My constituents in Muxton, Newport, Wellington, Shifnal and Albrighton are affected, and there are real-life consequences—important legal documentation, health documentation, cancer results. Time matters. That is why this is a very serious issue. It needs to be investigated, and I hope that the Minister and Ofcom will investigate it urgently.

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40. 4 Feb 2026·Parliament·Mark Pritchard

    Postal Services: Rural Areas

    I am glad that the Government are committed to that, but I am not sure that Royal Mail is, and that is the problem. Ofcom fines are clearly not working, because Royal Mails keeps repeating the same mistakes. I hope the Minister will note this moment in time—this debate—because I am very concerned by a situation in which Royal Mail is making the same mistakes and just paying the fines, and baking that into their business plan, and the Minister is saying, as he no doubt will later on, that he has limited powers because it is now a private company. If that is the case, then it is likely that all our constituents will see a further decline in letter delivery services. Will the Minister at least commit that, in those circumstances, the Government will apply for a judicial review on the grounds of failure to disclose necessary documents at the point of sale and failure to deliver the universal service obligation—a legal obligation? If the Government do not intervene, I believe that we will see a complete collapse of the letter delivery service.

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