Emily Thornberry

Genuinely guys, just give me a chance to put this before you. The Foreign Secretary’s letter states that—[Interruption.] I hope that the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) will give me an opportunity to put this before the House. I apologise for calling hon. Members “guys”. The Foreign Secretary’s letter states that the Cabinet Office due diligence process was followed by the usual developed vetting process, or DV, which was carried out by national security vetting on behalf of the FCDO, after the announcement of Lord Mandelson’s appointment. According to the Foreign Secretary, this was conducted to the “usual standard set for Developed Vetting.” Career civil servants are regularly subjected to such tests, and many have stories of their appointments being delayed or even prohibited because they have studied abroad, married an Iranian, or simply because they were born in Belfast. The question is this: does having significant information in the public domain about a relationship with an internationally prolific child sex offender not raise more red flags than simply being born in Belfast? Is a civil servant a greater risk to this country because they are married to somebody who was born in the middle east or because they were close friends with Jeffrey Epstein? Did the Foreign Office vetting process miss a glaring national security and reputational risk, or was it told to overlook it? My Committee’s duty is to scrutinise the Foreign Office to make it the best that it can be, and neither the Foreign Office nor the Cabinet Office has shown itself to be the best it can be in the process surrounding this appointment.