Baroness Finn (Con)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for agreeing to take questions on yesterday’s Statement. The Falklands War was won in less than 12 weeks. This Government, however, cannot piece together a paper audit in that time. We have today simply been given a holding statement that more documents will be forthcoming. We remain no more enlightened than we were a month ago. No information has been forthcoming on the quantity of documents within scope of the humble Address passed in the other place, how many documents have been reviewed and by whom, whether the Cabinet Office has sought redactions and whether the Intelligence and Security Committee has agreed to those redactions. Can the Minister give the House a hard deadline by which the second tranche of documents will be published? In light of press coverage in the Guardian suggesting that the Cabinet Office considered withholding certain documents from the Intelligence and Security Committee, can the Minister give us a categorical assurance that no documents within scope of the humble Address will be withheld from that committee? In the other place, my honourable friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar asked the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister a number of specific questions that went unanswered. The Chief Secretary’s silence on questions relating to Peter Mandelson’s declaration of interests form was deafening. Can the Minister confirm that that document exists and that it will not be withheld or redacted without the consent of the Intelligence and Security Committee? Serious questions are being asked about Peter Mandelson’s links through business interests, and how his activities as ambassador may have been linked to those interests. We are also told that the security mitigations that were put in place for Peter Mandelson were not in response to his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Can the Minister give the House more clarity on that? Can she say whether the detail of those concerns will be made public if the ISC judges that they may be published? On a day when the Labour Party is whipping its MPs to prevent the Privileges Committee making an independent assessment of the Prime Minister’s conduct, can we be reassured that His Majesty’s Government will not stand in the way of other committees doing their work? The Government’s excuses for delay are wearing a little thin. We have heard all about the urgency that the Government are bringing to the matter: I hesitate to use the famous words “working at pace”. Yesterday, we heard from the Minister in the other place that documents should be published “in a chronological order”. He went on to say: “Otherwise, I suspect there would be questions about what documents were missing, subject to the conclusion of the Committee’s work”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/4/26; col. 589.] If it is the Government’s intention to avoid questions about what documents are missing, why are they still refusing to publish a list or overview of all the documents and whether they have been published? That overall document would help us greatly, and surely the titles or descriptions of the documents cannot be seen to prejudice any matter that is currently sub judice. Can the Minister say what progress is being made towards the publication of such a document? We have asked about this many times before and we still await a clear response.