Contribution
I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your remarks at the outset of this statement. I also thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement, which I received at 1.30 pm. This whole business is really about transparency. The Government have had to be dragged to do this by Members on both sides of this House, so producing a 135-page document and putting it online 23 minutes before this debate is really not acceptable at all. I respect the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister for coming to the Chamber and making this statement, but it really ought to be the Prime Minister sitting there, because all of this is about the Prime Minister’s judgment. It is very convenient that this document was published after Prime Minister’s questions, during which the man who made the decision—the man whose judgment is in question—could have been put under scrutiny by hon. Members. Very many questions arise from the documents published. I will put a few on record, and then return to the central theme.
There is the issue of severance pay, to which the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister referred. Why did Ministers agree to any severance pay, given what had happened? Many of our constituents will be disgusted that Peter Mandelson received £70,000. Will his full declaration of interests, which he was supposed to have handed over when he was appointed, be published? I do not believe that they are included in the tranche of documents published today. Is that because of a police request, or is it for some other reason? Will the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister publish a register of withheld and delayed documents, so that the House can be aware of what is being held back? Will he give us a little more information, either now or in the future, on redactions? It is important that this House understands who is deciding on what will be redacted.
This awful saga involving Jeffrey Epstein continues. I understand that, as this House meets, one of his ranches in New Mexico is being investigated because there are reports that bodies are buried there. At the centre of this scandal was a very rich and powerful man who despicably abused his position, and he was helped to become rich and powerful by his associates, one of whom was Peter Mandelson. Although I of course associate myself with the remarks made by the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister about Epstein’s victims, it is very clear that those victims were not in the Prime Minister’s mind when he appointed Peter Mandelson. The Prime Minister has already admitted that he knew Mandelson had maintained his friendship with Epstein even after the latter’s conviction for his terrible crimes. That was a bad choice, and it is a choice that we can now read about in black and white on page 11 of the publication. It says:
“After Epstein was first convicted of procuring an underage girl in 2008, their relationship continued across 2009-2011, beginning when Lord Mandelson was Business Minister and continuing after the end of the Labour government. Mandelson reportedly stayed in Epstein’s House while he was in jail in June 2009.”
The Prime Minister claims that he was lied to; he was not lied to by this due diligence document. It may be that Mandelson denied those claims, and if so, perhaps the Prime Minister was lied to, but by an inveterate liar who had been fired twice before. We are supposed to believe that the Prime Minister, who was once the chief prosecutor in this country, could not see through this nonsense. It beggars belief.
Over the coming hours and days, we will see whether these documents reveal why the Prime Minister’s judgment failed so badly, but we must suspect that it was because his then chief of staff was Mandelson’s protégé. Morgan McSweeney had set up Labour Together, the Prime Minister’s private campaigning organisation. Peter Mandelson had advised Morgan McSweeney on the establishment of that organisation, which had been responsible for breaking electoral law so that it could hide the sources of its funds from the public and from the Labour party. Labour Together then sought to intimidate and smear journalists who revealed that wrongdoing, and it provided hundreds of Labour MPs and many of the top brass in the Cabinet with free money and free services. This was the ultimate “jobs for the boys”. The Prime Minister knew all that he needed to know. It was on him; it is on him now. He let his party and his country down. I very much doubt that either will trust him again.