Emily Thornberry

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his statement and for telling us that relevant direct ministerial appointments, including politically appointed diplomatic roles where the appointee will have access to highly classified material, will have to pass the requisite national security vetting process before such appointments are announced or confirmed. [Interruption.] That may sound surprising to Conservative Members, who probably did not hear what my right hon. Friend said as they were barracking him so much, but that is to be—[Interruption.] That is to be welcomed. The Foreign Affairs Committee believed that Peter Mandelson should have come before our Committee before he was sent to Washington, and we were right. We should not have been prevented from seeing him. In the past, political appointees to ambassadorial roles have nearly always appeared before the Committee, but only at the Foreign Office’s discretion. We do not want it to have that discretion any more. We would like it written into the rules that before someone is appointed to an ambassadorial role or to be chair of the British Council or director of the BBC World Service, those political appointees must appear in public before the Foreign Affairs Committee and answer our questions.