Five questions awaiting Starmer as he faces Commons over Mandelson scandal

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is set to face a packed Commons later where he will address questions over Lord Mandelson's vetting.

Sir Keir repeatedly told MPs that "full due process" was followed when Lord Mandelson was appointed as US ambassador in December 2024.

The prime minister said he was "staggered" to find out last week that civil servants in the Foreign Office withheld information from him about red flags in the initial vetting process.

Amid calls for him to resign from every opposition leader, Sir Keir pledged "true transparency" as he tried to set out what happened. Here are the main questions he needs to answer.

1. What did Starmer know and when?

Sir Keir told reporters that the first he knew about the red flags was on Tuesday last week, despite them being initially raised to the Foreign Office by UK Security and Vetting (UKSV) officials in January last year.

He said the information was passed on to him by Dame Antonia Romeo, the head of the civil service, and Cat Little, the head of the Cabinet Office, who had received it two weeks prior.

The documents had been revealed after the Conservatives tabled a motion which demanded the publication of all paperwork relating to the vetting process.

The prime minister's head of press, Tim Allan, was contacted by the political editor of the Independent in September, with the paper publishing a story about Mandelson failing vetting later that month.

The prime minister has insisted that his former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and staff in Number 10 also did not know about the UKSV warnings.

McSweeney quit his job over the Mandelson scandal in February.

However, opposition MPs say it is not credible that neither Sir Keir, nor anyone on his team, could have remained in the dark for more than a year.

2. Why did Starmer and his team not ask for more information?

Sir Keir moved to replace the previous US ambassador Karen Pierce, a civil servant, with Lord Mandelson when US President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January last year.

As a political appointee, critics say the risk of Lord Mandelson's appointment was higher than a career civil servant, so Sir Keir and Number 10 should have taken more care to ensure the vetting process was followed correctly.

Lord Mandelson's friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was public knowledge well before his appointment, as were previous scandals around money and influence that led to him being forced out of Cabinet twice.

Yet it seems the first person to request the UKSV summary form was Dame Antonia, shortly after her appointment in February.

3. Did Starmer mislead Parliament?

Sir Keir told MPs in September, a day before Lord Mandelson was sacked as US ambassador, that "full due process" had been followed during his appointment.

The Conservatives say Sir Keir misled the Commons and had therefore broken the ministerial code. The prime minister denies this, saying he had only been told about the vetting recommendation last Tuesday.

Under the code, the minister in question should correct the record in Parliament "at the earliest opportunity". Opposition party leaders say Sir Keir should have done this at PMQs last week, the day after he said he found out about the red flags.

Sir Keir told journalists that having found out the information on vetting last Tuesday, he asked his civil servants to provide full details so he could ensure accuracy when he returned to the Commons to answer questions from MPs on Monday.

There are sure to be questions about this six-day delay, although we know the prime minister was in Paris on Thursday for a pre-scheduled meeting of global leaders on the Iran war, and the next parliamentary sitting was Monday.

4. Why did Mandelson fail his vetting?

The remaining documents relating to Lord Mandelson's vetting and appointment are set to be released imminently.

They were initially withheld on the orders of the Metropolitan Police, which is investigating Lord Mandelson for potential criminal activity.

The documents also need to be inspected by the Intelligence and Security Committee of cross-party MPs, which is trying to balance allowing as much information as possible into the public domain without compromising national security.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has demanded the papers be released by the end of the week.

Sir Chris said Lord Mandelson was not directly asked in person about any conflict of interest, but instead needed to fill in a form aimed more at potential financial conflicts. This process has now been changed.

Details of the due diligence checks made before Lord Mandelson's appointment, which were carried out by the Cabinet Office on behalf of Number 10, are still to emerge. The publication of these checks were specifically demanded by the Liberal Democrats on Sunday.

However, Sir Chris told MPs in November that the document did contain an "initial assessment" of mitigations around potential professional or financial relationships and noted the inclusion of "a general reputational risk" linked to Epstein.

5. Will Starmer face further pressure after Monday's Commons appearance?

This scandal has dragged on for months and has so far cost Sir Keir his US ambassador, his chief of staff, and the head of the Foreign Office, Sir Olly Robbins, who was ousted on Thursday.

Sir Olly will appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday to give evidence on how Lord Mandelson's clearance was handled.

The committee chair, Dame Emily Thornberry, said she felt she had been "misled" by Sir Olly when he first appeared at the committee in November last year.

He will be expected to explain whether red flags about Lord Mandelson's appointment were ignored, and if so who by and why.

He is also expected to be asked whether Foreign Office staff were leaned on in any way by Number 10.

And then there is the question of whether Labour backbenchers, returning from a week on the campaign trail for local elections, will rally behind their leader.

The remaining documents linked to Lord Mandelson's vetting will be released at some point in the next few weeks, and the possibility of a criminal trial remains.