Peter Mandelson was announced as Britain’s ambassador to the United States before his security vetting was complete. He received access to the Foreign Office, government computers and classified briefings while that process was still under way.
A parliamentary committee says the usual checks failed.
The Foreign Affairs Committee published its report on 9 July 2026 after examining Mandelson’s appointment to one of Britain’s most important diplomatic jobs. MPs heard hours of evidence, and more than 1,500 pages of government documents were released.
There are still gaps.
The committee found no written record explaining why Mandelson was chosen, and no record of the final decision to appoint him. It also found no evidence showing what safeguards were put in place after security concerns were identified.
This was not a junior appointment.
Britain’s ambassador in Washington deals with the White House, US security officials and some of the country’s most sensitive information.
The government announced Mandelson’s appointment on 20 December 2024, and he started work in Washington on 10 February 2025. He was sacked by the Prime Minister on 11 September 2025 after new emails emerged about his relationship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The Prime Minister later said he regretted the appointment and would not have made it if he had known then what he knew afterwards.
The committee says concerns should have been confronted before Mandelson was given the job. His friendship with Epstein was already known, as were his foreign business interests and his role as a founder of the consultancy Global Counsel. Those facts did not automatically disqualify him. But they did demand serious checks.
Instead, the committee found that officials spent time debating whether Mandelson needed full security vetting at all, because he was a member of the House of Lords and the Privy Council. The Foreign Office normally expects its ambassadors to hold Developed Vetting clearance, one of the highest levels of government security checking. Officials eventually decided Mandelson should go through it.
By then, his appointment had already been announced.
The King had approved it. The United States had accepted it. Mandelson had access to the Foreign Office and basic government IT, and was receiving highly classified briefings on a case by case basis. The checks were no longer deciding whether he should get the job; officials were trying to complete them around a decision that had already been made.
Sir Olly Robbins, the former senior official at the Foreign Office, told MPs there had been a “generally dismissive attitude” from Number 10 towards the vetting process, and a strong expectation that Mandelson should reach Washington as quickly as possible. The timing mattered. Donald Trump was returning to the White House, and the government wanted its new ambassador in place.
Speed was understandable. Treating security checks as an inconvenience was not.
Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff, told the committee that Number 10 had never asked officials to skip steps or lower their standards. Officials also said the pressure did not change their professional judgement.
The committee was not convinced that the system worked as it should. It found that the Foreign Office was presented with a decision and expected to make it work. The department’s most senior official had not been consulted before Mandelson was selected, and, according to the committee, neither had the Foreign Secretary. There was no clear written process for making a political appointment to an ambassador’s post.
The committee described the record keeping by Number 10 and the Foreign Office as “appalling”. Some documents may be held by the Metropolitan Police as part of its investigation into alleged misconduct in public office, though the existence of an investigation does not establish wrongdoing. Other records may have been lost. It is also possible that some were never created.
None of those answers is reassuring.
The security vetting process reportedly identified risks, and officials said measures were introduced to control them. But the committee could not find a proper record showing what those measures were, who approved them or how they were explained to Mandelson. Without that record, MPs could not judge whether the safeguards were enough.
The committee has called for political candidates for senior diplomatic jobs to appear at a public hearing before appointment, and wants the Foreign Affairs Committee to have the power to veto them.
That would be a major change. Prime ministers have long held wide power over political appointments, and there is a fair argument that an elected government must be able to choose people it trusts for sensitive roles.
Trust cannot replace security clearance.
The committee also wants ministers to stop announcing public appointments before the required vetting has been completed, and says future due diligence reports should be shared with the department hiring the person. These are basic safeguards.
Peter Mandelson’s appointment was announced first. The security process followed.
The committee’s verdict was blunt: “The usual checks and balances did not halt the appointment because they were not made.”