David Davis

Exactly, and in fact earlier than that point. I will come back to that when I talk briefly about the vetting process. What precisely did the Prime Minister learn from reading the Bloomberg emails that was not already known about Lord Mandelson from public information and vetting done before the appointment? Each day that goes by, we see more shocking revelations not only about his misconduct and his links to Jeffrey Epstein, but about the failures of both the vetting process and the political judgment of those at the top of Government. I say to the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) that that relates not just to their political judgment, but to their moral standards and the equity in how they apply those moral standards across the board. That brings us to the question: what happened to the vetting process? Most of what I have described was in the public domain. It does not take James Bond; Google could do this. What was not in the public domain was in the official records, or known to the intelligence agencies—in other words, it was all available to the Government. We know there was a two-page propriety and ethics briefing, which should have flagged concerns, but it merely triggered an unpenetrating email inquiry. That goes straight to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), which is: where were the questions? Someone does not just send a three-line email and forget about it; they pursue the questions and cross-question the person under suspicion.