MPs voted 335-223 against the motion, meaning the government won by a majority of 112.

Iran’s ambassador to the UK has been summoned by the Foreign Office over “unacceptable and inflammatory comments” posted by the embassy on social media, the Press Association reports. PA says:

Seyed Ali Mousavi was called in by Middle East minister Hamish Falconer over an online message reportedly recruiting expats to become martyrs.

The Foreign Office said the minister condemned the “completely unacceptable actions”.

The intervention followed reports in Metro about a message on the embassy’s Telegram channel calling for expats to “sacrifice their lives for the homeland”.

Peers have ended their stand-off with MPs over plans to curb social media for under-16s after the government agreed to introduce “age or functionality restrictions”, the Press Association reports. PA says:

The two chambers of the House of Commons had been locked in a fight over the children’s wellbeing and schools bill regarding the content under-16s are exposed to online.

Peers stood down this afternoon after ministers announced they would impose social media restrictions for young people regardless of the outcome of a consultation which is currently under way.

Pressure in the House of Lords had been led by Tory former education minister and academy chain founder Lord Nash, who accepted the government’s concession.

Lord Nash told the upper chamber: “[I] thank the government for their active engagement in the matter of social media, albeit rather last minute, and for making a binding commitment to impose some form of age or functionality restrictions for children under 16, and to be focused on addictive features, harmful, algorithmic driven content and features such as stranger pairing that we know can be most damaging to children’s safety.”

The Green party has also responded to the Guardian story saying Rachel Reeves is considering a rent freeze. (See 3.52pm.) It has released this statement from the Green MP Carla Denyer.

I have spent over a decade making the case for rent controls as an essential part of making housing truly affordable, alongside funding councils properly to build and buy more council homes, and scrapping Thatcher’s ‘Right to Buy’ council home sell-off scheme.

I can’t help but notice that after years of Labour ministers telling me their party does not support rent controls, and after rejecting my attempts since 2024 to amend the Renters’ Rights Act to include rent control powers, the chancellor is choosing now, the week before the local elections, to ‘consider’ the idea. Could it be that they have been out door-knocking and discovered that our policies to protect renters are cutting through to a public fed up with Labour’s failures?

Denyer said, if Reeves were serious about this, she would announce rent controls now.

The Conservatives have said rent controls would be “disastrous”. Responding to the news that Rachel Reeves is considering a rent freeze (see 3.52pm), James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary, said:

Rent controls would be completely disastrous for tenants. Even Labour’s housing minister has acknowledged that. But with the party struggling, Rachel Reeves is reaching for failed socialist policies.

Labour’s red tape and higher taxes have already forced up rents and reduced choice for renters. A rent freeze would just drive more landlords from the market and lead to further big hikes in rents for new tenants, as seen in Scotland.

Sir Christian Turner, who replaced Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, privately told students in February that the Epstein scandal could bring down Keir Starmer.

Turner’s comments have been reported by the Financial Times, which also says the diplomat told the students that the only country with which the US really has a special relationship is Israel.

In their story, Lucy Fisher and Paul Murphy say:

[Turner] said of Starmer’s premiership earlier in February that “at one stage he was pretty clearly on the ropes” and his future looked “quite touch and go”.

The Labour party’s rules set a high threshold to remove a sitting prime minister, Turner noted, highlighting that it required 80 MPs to “sign a letter in public, which is like signing a death warrant”.

Reaching such a bar was “still quite difficult” and Starmer was “a stubborn guy” who would be unlikely to quit, the ambassador said. However, he added: “The moment I would look to is the May elections. If Labour does very badly … I suspect the party will be able to go over that threshold and remove him – seems to me to be the conventional thinking.”

Turner told the students that he was just a “citizen speculating” and that, as ambassador, it was his job to serve whoever was PM.

Turner also said that, while the Epstein scandal has already brought down a member of the royal family and an ambassador in the UK, it was “extraordinary” that in the US the scandal “hasn’t touched anybody”.

UPDATE: Rowena Mason has a full version of this story.

Turning away from the Mandleson scandal for a moment, Downing Street and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, have both been responding to Kiran Stacey’s Guardian story saying the Treasury is considering imposing a one-year rent freeze on private sector homes to deal with the impact of the Iran war on household budgets.

Asked about the story, the PM’s spokesperson said:

We have no plans to implement this. Our focus remains on cutting bills and backing renters alongside lower energy prices.

But, during Treasury questions in the Commons, Reeves herself did not rule out the idea. Asked if she would consider the case for a fixed-term rent freeze, Reeves said:

This government have already taken action to reduce the cost of living and to bear down on inflation with the changes around energy prices, around fuel duty, prescription charges and rail fares.

And I will do everything in my power and use every lever we have to bear down on the cost of living, including for people in the private rented sector.

That is why we have already introduced the Renters’ Rights Act.

And whilst for people who have mortgages, they have seen cuts in their mortgage rates since we came into office, we will do everything we can to also help people in the private rented sector, because we must ensure that this conflict in the Middle East does not result in our constituents being poorer.

Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.

Anas Sarwar has dismissed the debate on referring Keir Starmer to the privileges committee as “a political stunt, nine days out from an election”.

Speaking to media on a visit to a support service for drug users in Glasgow, Sarwar said that Scottish Labour MPs, who have been called back from their campaigning to vote in the Commons tonight, “are going to focus on this election campaign and vote against this party political stunt from the SNP, the Tories and others”.

On the doorstep, Sarwar said, there was “disappointment and anger” about Starmer but also about the SNP government at Holyrood. He said:

Unlike my political opponents, I’ll be honest about failure whenever I see it.

Yes, I have a frustration with the mistakes made by Kier Starmer, that’s why I said what I said back in February. But the opportunity people having this election is to change the government in Scotland.

A vote for me and Scottish Labour is not an endorsement of Kier Starmer, it won’t be used as an endorsement of Kier Starmer. It’s to change the first minister here Scotland.

Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.

Forcing Labour MPs to oppose the Tory motion aimed at sparking a probe into Keir Starmer will play into the “terrible narrative” that they are complicit in a cover-up, one of the prime minister’s own backbenchers has said.

Emma Lewell, a leftwing backbencher who spoke immediately after Kemi Badenoch opened the debate, said she shared a feeling with the public of being “let down, disappointed and angry”.

She said:

I feel the way that today’s vote has been handled by the government smacks once again of being out of touch and disconnected from the public mood.

The fact that MPs like me are being whipped into voting against this motion is in my view wrong. It has played into the terrible narrative that there is something to hide and good decent colleagues will be accused of being complicit in a cover-up.

Recent weeks have seen such abuse intensify and ongoing abuse and threats to me and my staff’s safety continues. Tryst has gone and it has been replaced by anger. The already fragile fabric of our democracy is eroding further every day this continues.

Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.

Kemi Badenoch and Ed Davey have joined forces in the Commons to pile fresh pressure on Keir Starmer as the Tory leader spearheaded a motion aimed at forcing him to face a parliamentary probe over his claims about the vetting of Peter Mandelson.

The Tory leader chided those on the government’s frontbench for forcing backbench Labour MPs to turn out to oppose the motion, which identifies three possible areas where Starmer was accused of having misled parliament.

“They are being whipped today to exonerate him before the facts have even been tested,” Badenoch said of Labour MPs.

Moments earlier, Ed Davey had drawn laughs when he said that he was as “not a fan of Boris Johnson” but at least the Conservative party had not whipped its MPs when Johnson had faced a similar motion in the past.

Badenoch said the prime minister had appointed Mandelson before security vetting was complete in contravention of advice given to him in November by the then cabinet secretary, while his own national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, had described the appointment as “weirdly rushed”.

“We also know that this latest information about the problems with the security vetting did not come from the humble address it came from a leak to the Guardian vetting,” Badenoch added, citing the Guardian’s revelation that Mandelson had not passed his vetting interviews.

“So why should we wait for a never never process that is clearly not happening,” she added, in response to Labour MPs who accused her of mounting a stunt rather than waiting for the release of documents under the humble address process initiated to reveal records about the appointment.

In the Commons Nadia Whittome was the fourth speaker in the debate from the Labour benches – and the third Labour MP. (See 2.12pm.)

She said that she would “like nothing more than for us to be focusing on what this government has delivered”, but that achievements were being overshadowed by mistakes, like the appointment of Peter Mandelson.

She said.

I’ve listened to the prime minister’s arguments, and unfortunately, I am yet to be convinced that he has definitively not misled the House, even if inadvertently, because I’m concerned that pressure was put on the Foreign Office regarding managers and appointments given Sir Olly Robbin’s evidence.

She said she thought Starmer should refer himself to the privileges committee. And she said that she would vote for the opposition motion.

In the Commons they are now on the sixth speaker in the debate. The opposition benches have been heavily outgunning the government benches.

Three opposition MPs have already spoken: Kemi Badenoch, who opened the debate; Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader; and David Davis, the former Tory cabinet minister.

Responding from the Labour benches have been Emma Lewell, Gurinder Josan and (speaking now) Karl Turner – who is technically not a Labour MP at the moment, because he has had the whip withdrawn.

Turner is in favour of Starmer being referred to the privileges committee (although he has just said that he thinks Starmer would be exonerated if an inquiry did take place).

While Turner was speaking, the Labour MPs Andy McDonald and John McDonnell both argued that it would be better for Starmer to allow the inquiry to go ahead so that Starmer can clear his name.

UPDATE: McDonald said:

The prime minister has set out a very detailed chronology, and he’s made it abundantly clear that he has not lied, he has not misled this house. So, in those circumstances, would it not be the right thing to do to embrace this process and wipe the floor with the critics that put these things to him?

Almost every profile of Morgan McSweeney, who has been one of the most powerful figures in Labour politics in the past six years, but who almost never gives interviews, describes him as “softly spoken”. Now we know why. He came over remarkably self-effacing for someone who did such an important job. He did not seem relish the attention, and mostly his answers were low-key – with one exception. His line about how learning the full extent of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein in September 2025 was like “having a knife through my soul” was the best soundbite of the entire hearing. (See 11.58am.)

In terms of substance, McSweeney’s evidence was relatively helpful to Starmer. McSweeney accepted he was at fault in recommending Mandelson, and for the most part he was quite complimentary about his former boss. (The exception came when he implied that Starmer placed too much faith in what the developed vetting process would throw up – see 10.50am.)

McSweeney also did a reasonably good job at pushing back at the suggestion that the Mandelson appointment was just a favour for a New Labour mentor. (See 11.17am and 12.26pm.) He was also quite good on the distinction between pressure to act quickly, and pressue to nobble the vetting process. (See 12.44pm.) But he still could not justify what turned out to be a woeful decision. One of the most telling exchanges came when Emily Thornberry asked why just the very fact that Mandelson had stayed in Epstein’s home after Epstein had been convicted was not enough to prove he was not suitable to be ambassador. (See 1.10pm.) On that, McSweeney did not have a decent answer.

Q: Did the phone have messages relating to the appointment of Mandelson?

McSweeney said there was probably not much on the phone that was not already available to No 10. He explained:

When he was sacked, No 10 did do its own investigation, its own research, on what happened. And as part of that process, I was asked to share messages and emails about the appointment.

Q: So those messages are recorded?

Everything that I had at that time in September, which was more than a month before my phone was stolen, I shared it with the No 10 team.

Beyond that, any messages that I sent to ministers or staff or officials would still be on their phones.

Q: So is there a record of all the messages on the phone, which will be published if released?

McSweeney said he did not think all the messages would be available. He said he was not sure what the Cabinet Office would be releasing.

Q: Was the phone backed up?

McSweeney said he kept the default settings on. But he says it is understanding that the messages were not backed up to the cloud?

Q: Did you have disappearing messages on your phone?

Yes, with most people, McSweeney said.

Q: With Mandelson?

Probably, yes, said McSweeney.

That hearing is now over.

At the foreign affairs committee John Whittingdale (Con) is asking Morgan McSweeney about the theft of his phone.

Q: The Met have released the transcript of your call. It shows you did not tell them that you were chief of staff to the PM and that this was a government phone. If you had done that, that would have taken it more seriously.

McSweeney says the phone was stolen on 20 October. He goes on:

I was a victim of crime. Somebody hopped on to the pavement and took my phone from me.

The first thing I did was to try and retrieve it. I tried to chase [them], which was probably a mistake.

The next thing I did was I phoned No 10, and I would have done whatever they told me to do.

Now, I thought at the time that they would be able to track the phone and that’s what would happen given what’s actually on that phone.

I then called 999.

If No 10 had told me, you need to tell the police, tell the call handler what your job is. I would have done so, but … I didn’t in any part of my job go around saying, I’m a very serious and senior person.

I also thought, wrongly again, a squad car might come by and I could explain a bit more if the squad car had come by.

Kemi Badenoch accused Labour MPs of acting like “sheep” as she opened the Commons debate on referring Keir Starmer to the privileges committee over claims he misled the Commons about the Mandelson vetting process.

She said:

The ministerial code is very clear: ministers who mislead the House must correct the record, and I quote ‘at the earliest opportunity’.

It is very obvious that … what the prime minister said at the dispatch box was not correct. It’s clear that full due process was not followed. If Labour MPs allow the whips to force them to block the consequences of these decisions, it will degrade not just them, but this House.

The question is, what kind of people are they? Are they people who will live up to the promises they made about standards and the rules mattering, or are they people who abandon their promises to be complicit in a cover-up?

Badenoch said to describe the debate as a “stunt”, as many Labour MPs have been doing, was “disrespecting this House and disrespecting the speaker”.

She went on:

It’s very obvious they’ve all been told to come here today. Tell everybody it’s a stunt, tell everybody it’s a stunt.

Why are they acting like sheep? Why are they acting like sheep? They should be better than that.

Back at the foreign affairs committee, Morgan McSweeney says there is “no way” that Peter Mandelson would have been appointed ambassador to the US if the government had known the information about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein that came out in the Epstein files.

But he suggests the Foreign Office should have been able to get some of this material from the US administration.

One of the things that subsequently surprised me – I would have assumed that, and maybe they did – but I would assume that our Foreign Office would have been in contact with us counterparts to see what information they held on him.

Q: Was George Osborne just on the shortlist as a stooge, to make Starmer pick Mandelson?

McSweeney says the civil service had a lot of warning that a Labour government would want to appoint a political figure as ambassador to Washington.

If Kamala Harris had won, Mandelson would not have been appointed, he says.

He says Osborne was a “very credible candidate” for the job.

Referring to claims Downing Street put pressure on the Foreign Office to approve Mandelson’s vetting, McSweeney says in January 2025 getting Mandelson’s appointment confirmed wasn’t one of the most important issues facing the government.

He goes on:

I think it’s important that we unpack this idea of pressure because there’s been a lot of conversation about it.

There’s pressure in government every day, and most that pressure comes from within.

Every civil servant minister, [the staff] I worked with, woke up every morning feeling pressure to make the country better, wanting to move faster - that’s where the pressure comes from.

And No 10’s job in all of this is to make sure that the prime minister’s decisions are acted on quickly.

But there is a “real difference” between that, “asking people to lower standards,” McSweeney sayd. “And we never did that.”

McSweeney says he is very glad that Philip Barton has confirmed that McSweeney did not swear at him. (See 9.36am.)

He says:

This swearing rumour is it is something that has caused me a great deal of stress for a number of months.

I do not know why people do this in politics, put around untrue rumours. They phone lots of journalists. Those journalists then phone lots of politicians … It’s damaging for people’s reputations. And I think it’s unfair for staff who can speak for themselves.

McSweeney told the committee that he did not try to get Mandelson appointed ambassador as a favour for a friend, or because he regarded him as a “hero”. He said:

In every advice that I gave to the prime minister, hand on heart I thought I was operating in a motive in the national interest.

In politics, over decades, you know a lot of people. In 20 years in politics, I’ve had to fire friends from jobs. I’ve had to turn people down who were desperate for jobs, who were closer friends of mine than Mandelson, who really wanted jobs in No 10, or people who thought they were going to be ministers, because I’ve always tried to operate in national interest …

This was not some hero I was trying to get a job for. I thought that his skills as EU commissioner would help us to get the trade deal that I think the country needed, because we were very, very exposed after Brexit and getting that trade deal right was very important.

McSweeney said that, if Mandelson failed his vetting, his appointment would have been withdrawn.

I didn’t have a contingency plan [for Mandelson failing vetting] in place, but was always aware that somebody could fail security vetting, was always aware that that was a possibility for any appointment that we made.

Asked if he thought Mandelson might fail vetting, McSweeney said:

No. And if it had happened, we’d have withdrawn the ambassadorship. It would have been a political embarrassment.

Q: Why was the Foreign Office told to look for a diplomatic job for Matthew Doyle without telling David Lammy, the foreign secretary?

McSweeney says Doyle’s time in No 10 was coming to an end.

The PM wanted to give him the chance of getting an alternative government job.

He says that the Foreign Office was asked about possible jobs that Doyle could apply for.

If he had applied for one of those posts, as that point Lammy would have been told.

The matter was kept relatively secret because it was an HR matter.

McSweeney said, at the time of the appointment, he did not realise that Mandelson had been close friends with Epstein.

The nature of the relationship that I understood he had with Epstein was not a close friendship.

How I understood it at the time was a passing acquaintance that he regretted having, and that he apologised for.

What is emerged since then was way, way, way worse than I had expected at the time.

And it was when I saw the pictures, when I saw the [Bloomberg revelations] in September 2025, I have to say it was like a knife through my soul.

John Whittingdale (Con) is asking the questions now.

Q: Who first suggested Mandelson should be ambassador?

McSweeney replies:

I think the first person who put Mandelson’s name forward was Mandelson.

As part of the Cabinet Office due diligence scrutiny, Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein came up. McSweeney was asked to contact Mandeslon about this, and Matthew Doyle, the PM’s then communications chief, also contacted Mandelson about this too.

Thornberry asked it that was an appropriate way to deal with this.

McSweeney said he agreed that was not appropriate. He went on:

When I look back on it, I certainly think it would have been much, much better if I’d asked PET [the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team] to ask those follow up questions.

I guess my thinking at the time was if I put follow-up questions to him in writing, and that if a senior member of staff did that, that he would feel more obligated to give the truth and the full truth.

I didn’t feel that I got that back from him.

But it wasn’t my decision. It was the prime minister’s decision and he saw the DV [developed vetting] as part of that decision.

UPDATE: I have amended the headline in the light of how McSweeney clarified what he meant at 12.29pm.

Q: Starmer appointed Mandelson even though he did not like him much. But you wanted him.

McSweeney replies:

At the time in Downing Street, there was conversations about who, who could be the best candidate. And names that were considered and most people were making pros and cons arguments.

I have to say, I know that a lot of people now say they told the prime minister they were against it at the time.

Everything I know about how the prime minister works is he will consult widely. He will take a lot of views on.

And if everybody else was opposed to this appointment but me, he would not have made an appointment such as that.

Q: It was reported last year that, before Mandelson was appointed, you sought official advice on whether he could do that job part-time, because he was also standing for election as chancellor of Oxford University.

McSweeney says he has no recollection of that.

He says he regarded being an ambassador as a full-time job. He says he told Mandelson he could not combine being ambassador with being chancellor of Oxford.

But he says Mandelson was hedging his bets at that point.

Emily Thornberry is asking the questions.

Q: Mandelson was an indispensable confidant to you, wasn’t he?

McSweeney says Mandelson was a confidant – but not a mentor.

I didn’t regard him as my mentor. I first had a conversation with Peter Mandelson in 2017. I don’t think I really started to go to him for advice until about 2021. And I was 44 years of age then. So I didn’t regard him at all as a mentor.

In his opening statement, McSweeney went on to say he did not tell anyone to ignore vetting checks.

He said:

It is also important, however, to distinguish between what I did do and what I did not do.

What I did do was make a recommendation based on my judgment that [Mandelson’s] experience, relationships and political skills could serve the national interest in Washington at an important moment. That judgment was a mistake.

What I did not do was oversee national security vetting, ask officials to ignore procedures, request that steps should be skipped, or communicate, explicitly or implicitly, the checks should be cleared at all costs. I would never have considered that acceptable. These processes are in place to protect our national security.

Morgan McSweeney is giving evidence now.

He starts with an opening statement, which he begins by recognising the harm done to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims.

He talks about the importance of public service.

I’ve spent much of my working life trying, in whatever role I held, to make this country fairer, stronger and more successful.

I have always believed public service is a privilege. It brings responsibility and scrutiny, but it also brings a meaningful chance to improve people’s lives. That is what motivated me in government.

He moves on to Mandelson.

The appointment of Manderson as ambassador was a serious error of judgment. I advised the prime minister in support of that appointment and I was wrong to do so.

As I said in my resignation statement, I resigned because I believe responsibility should rest with those who make serious mistakes. Accountability in public life cannot apply only when it is convenient.

The prime minister advice relied on my advice and I got it wrong.

There weren’t any bombshell surprises in Philip Barton’s evidence to MPs. It was not quite up there with Olly Robbins evidence, which contained some genuine surprises. But, if Robbins scored 8/10 on the damage to the PM index, then this evidence was at least a 6/10. It was not at all helpful. For at least three reasons.

First, Barton said quite a lot that strongly backed up the impression given by Robbins that this was a bad appointment pushed through with unseemly haste. Barton’s comments about knowing that the Mandelson’s Epstein links would be difficult, and never having encountered such a red flag-heavy appointment, were striking. Barton also made new points that in effect showed No 10 did not care about the vetting. At one stage he said this to describe Downing Street’s approach to vetting.

I wouldn’t use the word dismissive, the word I would use is uninterested. I think people wanted to know that all the practical steps required for Mandelson to arrive in Washington by or around the inauguration date, needed to be completed at pace.

And this is what he said about what would happen if Mandelson failed vetting.

It would have been a crisis if we got to the point where [Mandelson failed vetting]. That would have been a crisis, self-evidently, a publicly announced political appointment as the next ambassador to Washington, not being able to go. That would have been a big problem.

Starmer claims that, if he had known that UKSV officials recommended refusing vetting, he would have blocked the appointment. Barton’s comment shows how much pressure the system was under to avoid this.

Second, Barton refused to confirm Starmer’s claim that due process was followed. Even as I write, Kemi Badenoch will be incorporating this into the speech she will give in the Commons this afternoon because it backs her case that MPs were misled.

And, third, Barton made it fairly clear that he could not support the decision to sack Olly Robbins – now seen as another grievous error by the PM.

Q: Do you think this affair has damaged relations between ministers and civil servants?

Barton says that is an important question.

The British system of government works best when civil servants and ministers, including the highest level, work together effectively to deliver the elected government. They’ve got slightly different jobs and roles, and responsibilities.

And whenever that isn’t happening, that isn’t happening effectively, then you’re not able to deliver as well …

So I do think there’s a challenge now, and I think it’s incumbent on all of us … to try and get back to a situation where the government of the day and the civil service of the day have trusting relationships, understanding.

Barton says he does not want to say the relationship has broken down. But there are “challenges”, he says.

And that is the end of the hearing.

Morgan MsSweeney is due to start his evidence at 11am.

Q: Was the right process followed in the sacking of Olly Robbins?

Barton jokes about how the committee is saving the hardest questions for the end.

He goes on:

I don’t think I can answer that question. And it may become a matter of formal legal dispute.

When I was permanent undersecretary, there were a number of very serious disciplinary cases during my time leading to dismissal and they all involved some process.

But only the PM knows fully what happened, he says.

Q: Is there any precedent for this many red flags being raised about an ambassadorial appointment?

Barton says that is impossible to answer. He can’t cover what other governments have done. They do sometimes make bad appointments, he says. But he says, for appointments while he was permanent secretary, he cannot think of a precedent.

Q: Do you think due process was followed in the appointment of Mandelson?

Barton says it is not for him to answer. That is a matter for MPs to take a view on (because it is at the heart of the privileges debate today – see 8.42am.)

He goes on:

The bit I was responsible for, up until I stepped down on Sunday 19 January, that was proper process, done at pace as we were asked …

It was unusual for the announcement to be made before he vetted.

Paul Lewis is the Guardian’s head of investigations.

Barton has just given testimony that appears to be at odds with Downing Street’s position on the key question of due process.

The prime minister has always maintained that he was right to tell MPs that “due process” was followed in Mandelson’s appointment.

That claim has been under strain since the emergence of advice from then cabinet secretary Simon Case. It appeared to show he advised No 10 that security vetting should take place before Mandelson was announced as US ambassador.

Asked today which should come first – vetting of a would-be ambassador, or the announcement that they got the job – Barton was unequivocal. “The normal order is vetting then announcement,” he said.

Asked why that order wasn’t followed, he replied: “The timing of the announcement was driven and decided by No 10.”

Edward Morello (Lib Dem) goes next.

He says the committee was told last week that the Foreign Office was asked to find a diplomatic job for Matthew Doyle, but to not tell the foreign secretary (David Lammy).

Q: Were you ever told not to tell the foreign secretary about something?

Barton says that is unusual.

He says there are times when there are policy disagreements between the PM and the foreign secretary.

It is not unheard of for permanent secretaries, in a sense, to try and work in a way which allows there to be a decision, and a consensus view. The government can then move in and take it forward. And in that sort of situation, it’s not unheard of for a permanent secretary to be privy to something that they don’t pass on to or ask not to rather pass on to their secretary of state. So I describe as not unheard of.

But I don’t want to give the impression that this is going to a standard operating procedure.

Emily Thornberry asks if this every happened to Barton. Barton says it did. Thornberry seems astounded, saying: “I learn something new every day.”

Q: Was there a contingency plan for what would happen if Mandelson did not have his security vetting approved?

No, says Barton.

Thornberry says Mandelson was getting briefings, and getting access to secret material, before the developed vetting took place. So what was the point of the vetting?

Barton says, to do the job properly, Mandelson did need DV clearance.

Q: He had access to the building. He was acting as though he had DV already?

Barton does not accept that. He says, in the period before DV clearance was given, Mandelson did not have access to parts of the Foreign Office building where DV was required.

But it did make sense to ensure he was getting briefings before he officially started.

Q: He was offered the job on 20 December. He needed to be in Washington on 20 January. You were doing everything you could to accommodate that?

Barton replies: “Within the rules.”

Q: But is it possible that general presssure on the Foreign Office to deal with this quickly meant that there was pressure to approve the vetting decision”.

Barton says that Olly Robbins told the committee last week that he did not feel his decision making was affected by the pressure.

And he says Ian Collard, the Foreign Office’s head of security, said the same thing in his letter to the committee published yesterday. (See 8.50am.)

He says he believes both of them.

Q: Was there pressure on you to approve Mandelson’s vetting?

This is a reference to the claim that Keir Starmer misled MPs last week when he talked about no pressure being placed on the Foreign Office.

Barton says it depends what the phrase is taken as meaning.

He says he has prepared two answers, depending on which interpretation you take.

One is during my tenure. I was not aware of any pressure on the substance of the Mandelson DV case.

Question two was there pressure? Absolutely. And I’ve described it. And I also have seen what the Foreign Office said to you last night. [See 8.50am.]

I don’t think anyone could have been in any doubt in the department working on this that there was pressure to get everything done as quickly as possible.

Richard Foord (Lib Dem) says at the committee last week he said that Sam Coates had reported an allegation that Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s then chief of staff, called the Foreign Office and told them to “just fucking approve” the Mandelson appointment. Foord says he made a mistake; Coates had not reported this. He says he was referring to a remark make made in a private conversation to a member of the committee.

Barton says he has heard versions of this story. He says he cannot remember McSweeney swearing “in a meeting at me, or indeed in general”. He says he does not think there is any substance to this.

UPDATE: Barton said:

I didn’t receive any direct calls from the chief of staff during my time as permanent undersecretary. So there was no call at all. My interactions were always when others were present in a general meeting, there weren’t very many of those either …

I’ve really racked my brains and I cannot recall Morgan McSweeney swearing in a meeting at me, or indeed just in general. So I don’t see any substance in that part of it and I think it’s important I say that this morning, given how many people have come to think that might be true.

Q: If you had been consulted, would you have raised concerns about Mandelson?

Barton suggests he would have raised concerns.

At no point did anyone consult me, ask me. I was presented with a decision … and told to get on with it.

He says he had been deputy ambassador to the US, and knew the US well.

But he says he had concerns that Mandelson’s links with Jeffrey Epstein could be a problem.

I had a concern that a man who demonstrably from the public record at the time – and it was clearly much bigger than we all knew – had a link to Epstein, and that Epstein through both the presidential election campaign in the US and more generally in US politics, had been and was a controversial figure, and I was worried that this could become a problem in future …

I just thought that it was a potentially difficult issue politically in the United States.

That is a very candid account of probably what I was thinking at the time, but there was no space or avenue or mechanism for me to put that on the table.

A decision had been taken. It was a political decision.

UPDATE: Asked about his concerns, Barton said:

I think it was very much along the lines of what I just said, around the possibility of his known connection to Epstein, causing an issue subsequently.

Obviously, I didn’t know what was actually going to happen, because Epstein was such a toxic, hot potato subject in US politics itself, including in the election campaign.

He also said that Karen Pierce, the previous ambassador, had been “blindsided” by Mandelson’s appointment.

There was at least one tweet from someone close to Trump, reminding people of what Mandelson had said about Trump many years before, when he was president previously.

I think those around Trump felt blindsided by the announcement at short notice, shall we say, and it was clear also that Karen and her team had done an excellent job in establishing relationships and access to president-elect Trump, and also when he was a candidate.

Q: Do you think your concerns about Mandelson had any influence on David Lammy asking you to leave early?

No, says Barton.

He says he told the department he was leaving on 4 November. The Mandelson decision was not announced until a month later, he says.

John Whittingdale (Con) is asking the questions.

Q: Did you ask if developed vetting (DV) had taken place when you heard about the appointment?

Barton says it was clear it had not taken place. Due diligence (a different process, led by the Cabinet Office) had taken place.

Barton says initially he was told the Cabinet Office that that Mandelson did not need developed vetting.

He was surprised by that. He says he knew that, to the ambassador’s job, you had to have access to the deepest secrets.

But, after conversations with the Cabinet Office, it was agreed that developed vetting was needed.

Q: Was it definitely the Cabinet Office who initially said that DV was not needed? We have also heard the Foreign Office first suggested that.

Barton says he was told the Cabinet Office suggested that Mandelson did not need DV.

But he says he does not want to give the impression the centre was trying to block DV. By the end of the week everyone had agreed DV was needed.

The final decision is what matters, he says.

(Olly Robbins told the Commons last week that it was the Cabinet Office that first suggested DV was not needed. But later Darren Jones, and then Keir Starmer, said that it was the other way round, and that it was the Foreign Office that initially suggesed DV might not be needed because Mandelson was already a peer and a privy counsellor.)

Q: Where you ever asked your view about appointing Peter Mandelson?

Barton says he was first told about this on 15 December 2024.

He was not told this was being planned. He was not told a decision was coming.

Q: Should you have been?

Barton says the head of the Foreign Office would expect to be told.

But, given it was a political appointment, he can see why he was not involved.

He says he is “a bit conflicted” on whether or not he should have been consulted.

He says he thinks this would have been decided by a small circle of political advisers.

He goes on:

In the end, this is an appointment to the most senior job in our foreign service. I was head of the diplomatic service. So I think it is possible, without asking me as a civil servant, I think it is possible [a civil servant] to be involved in a conversation, for example, around what is what are the requirements, what does the UK need in the period ahead and that sort of thing – even if that you’re not then involved in the absolute decision making discussions around individuals who are politicians because it’s a political appointment.

Philip Barton, the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, is starting his evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee.

Emily Thornberry, the chair, welcomes him. She says he has given evidence to the committee many times before. But once he retired he did not expect to come back, she suggests.

Barton jokes about how it is “nice to be back” – before saying he does not want to be accused of misleaing the committee.

Q: Why did you leave office eight months early?

Barton says it was not his choice. He says David Lammy, the foreign secretary, wanted a new person in place to drive through transformation.

Last night the foreign affairs committee published a long memo from the Foreign Office giving answers to questions it had for Ian Collard, who was head of security at the Foreign Office at the time of the Mandelson appointment. Collard was the person who briefed Olly Robbins on the outcome of the Mandelson vetting interviews and who recommended that vetting should be approved, because the risks highlighted in the vetting interviews could be managed.

Here is Henry Dyer’s story about the document.

Good morning. The former US president Lyndon Johnson is credited with saying the most important skill in politics is knowing how to count, meaning that ultimately what matters is being able to win a vote. But sometimes in politics what matters just as much, or even more, is the ability to win the argument. Today Keir Starmer will be tested on both these measures.

Winning the vote should be easy. Here is our overnight preview story by Pippa Crerar on the events setting up today’s vote on a motion tabled by Kemi Badenoch, as well as MPs from five other opposition parties (the Lib Dems, the SNP, the DUP, Restore Britain, TUV) and a string of independents, referring Starmer to the privileges committee.

Labour MPs are on a three-line whip to vote against the motion, and the government should win easily. “We’ll vote it down,” Jonathan Reynolds, the chief whip, told Sky News last night.

Badenoch, who will be opening the debate, is hoping to persuade MPs, and the public, that Starmer lied to the Commons over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, just as Boris Johnson lied to MPs about Partygate. That will be quite a challenge; the case for Starmer deliberately misleading MPs is flimsy, and the comparison to Johnson is wide of the mark. Labour is saying the vote today is just a stunt ahead of next week’s local elections. On the Today programme this morning Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, dismissed this claim, saying: “There aren’t any political games going on here.” He is lucky MPs can’t get referred to the privileges committee for lying to Radio 4.

But the Mandelson affair isn’t really about whether Starmer misled MPs. In the view of the public, and most MPs, the real problem is that Starmer appointed Mandelson in the first place. Then, two weeks ago, Starmer compounded the problem by sacking Olly Robbins as permanent secretary to the Foreign Office after the Guardian revealed that Robbins approved Mandelson’s security vetting clearance even though the UK Security Vetting team who interviewed Mandelson originally recommended that vetting should be denied. Robbins did not know that at the time, and the decision to sack him is now widely seen as grossly unfair.

This morning, before the Commons debate starts, the Commons foreign affairs committee will hear from two witnesses who will give evidence who will probably reveal a lot more about how Mandelson came to be appointed in the first place. They are Philip Barton, the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, and Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s former chief of staff. McSweeney’s evidence should be the most interesting, because he was instrumental in helping Starmer become Labour leader, and then prime minister, and he has never questioned at length in public in this sort of way before. While Starmer is almost certain to win the Commons vote, the committee evidence may have a more significant impact on how he is viewed by his MPs.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Philip Barton, the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee.

Morning: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.

11am: Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff, gives evidence to the foreign affairs committee.

Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

After 12.40pm: Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, opens the debate on referring Keir Starmer to the privileges committee. MPs will vote at 7pm.

Afternoon: Starmer chairs a meeting of the government’s Middle East response committee

After 3pm: Peers vote on Commons amendments to the childrens’ wellbeing and schools bill.

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