Sacked Foreign Office chief Olly Robbins to face MPs’ questions over Mandelson vetting – UK politics live

Robbins was forced out as Foreign Office permanent secretary over the Mandelson vetting revelations in the Guardian

Good morning. In about an hour Olly Robbins will give evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee about the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US. Until last week Robbins was permanent secretary at the Foreign Office and his predecessor but one in that office, Simon McDonald, was the man who terminated Boris Johnson’s career with a revelation showing that Johnson had lied about his knowledge of a sleaze allegation about a minister. Robbins is not expected to produce a bombshell on that scale, but his evidence will be moment of jeodpardy for Keir Starmer nevertheless.

Robbins was sacked because he had not told Starmer that Mandelson failed his security vetting interview after Starmer had announced he was getting the ambassador’s job. If Robbins were to prove that Starmer were told, that would be career ending for the PM. But no one is expecting that.

Back before Lord Mandelson was announced as the appointee, there was a process … within the Cabinet Office to make sure that the prime minister was aware of Lord Mandelson and the issues around his appointment. There was then a process of clearing his conflicts of interest, which the employing department [the Foreign Office] oversaw, which we have talked about. In parallel with that process, we also went through the standard UK national security vetting process for DV [direct vetting].

By the time we are describing [when the security vetting was carried out], it was clear that the prime minister wanted to make this appointment himself.