Top Cabinet Office official to give evidence to MPs about Peter Mandelson’s vetting
Good morning. As Kiran Stacey, Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot report in the Guardian’s splash, “Keir Starmer is looking increasingly isolated over his handling of the Peter Mandelson scandal with divisions emerging in cabinet over his decision to sack the Foreign Office civil servant Olly Robbins.”
And this morning the saga continues, with Cat Little, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, giving evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee about the Peter Mandelson vetting controversy.
The Little hearing is unlikely to be as revelatory as the Olly Robbins session on Tuesday. But Little is a key figure in this story, for two reasons. First, as head of the Cabinet Office, she is in charge of collecting all the documents relating to Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US, and Mandelson’s communications with ministers and officials, which have to be published as a result of the humble address passed by parliament. It was in this capacity that she discovered the UK Security Vetting (UKSV) document that revealed that the UKSV officials who interviewed Mandelson for his developed vetting (DV) advised that he should not get clearance. At a meeting on Tuesday last week she reported this bombshell news to the PM. Here is the extract from the minute of that meeting released by No 10.
double quotation mark Cat set out that the vetting process involved UKSV in the Cabinet Office producing a vetting file which included a recommendation on whether DV should be granted, which was then passed to the sponsor department, in this case FCDO. As part of the humble address process, that file had been shared with Cat. On reviewing the file she had therefore learned that the recommendation from the vetting officer had been that DV should not be granted to Peter Mandelson. There is some discretion for departments to proceed with clearance and the FCDO had exercised it in this case, granting Mandelson vetting clearance. Cat had not seen the audit trail for this decision so we did not yet know on what basis the decision had been taken, contrary to the recommendation.
Second, UKSV is part of the Cabinet Office, which means she has oversight that entire process.
After Keir Starmer learned about this information, and after it was made public by a Guardian report, he sacked Olly Robbins, the Foreign Office permanent secretary, on the grounds that he should have followed the UKSV advice in relation to Mandelson – or at least flagged up these concerns to No 10. As Robbins explained to the committee on Tuesday, he insists that UKSV can only make a recommendation, that the final decision was one for the Foreign Office and its own security team, and that he was fully entitled to conclude that the risks flagged up by UKSV could be managed.
Little may shed some light on this dispute, although we know whose side she will take. Unlike Robbins, she is still a serving civil servant; she works for the PM. It will be surprising if she says anything that will cause him significant embarrassment.
But these hearings are also interesting for what they tell us about the workings of the British state. The Cabinet Office is at the centre of the UK’s security network, and the DV process is one of the most secretive parts of this system. It will be odd if we don’t learn something.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Cat Little, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, gives evidence to the foreign affairs committee.
9.30am: The ONS publishes crime figures for England and Wales
Morning: Keir Starmer is on a St George’s Day-related visit in the north-east.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Afternoon: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in Pembrokeshire, with the Welsh Tory leader, Darren Millar.
Afternoon: Starmer attends a military planning meeting at Northwood headquarters as part of strait of Hormuz coalition process
4.30pm: Lord Hermer, the attorney general, speaks at an Oxford University event alongside the Council of Europe secretary general, Alain Berset.
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If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
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Key events
Cat Little, head of Cabinet Office, gives evidence to foreign affairs committee
Cat Little is giving evidence now.
She says she has two key relevant responsibilities.
She is the official responsible for the government’s response to the humble address relating to the disclosure of the Mandleson documents.
And she is permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office, which means she is responsible for services provided to other departments, including UK Security Vetting.
But she was not involved in the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US.
And the sanctity of vetting is essential for national security. She says, although overseeing UKSV, she has nothing to do with its day-to-day operations.
Cat Little will only be able to say ‘exactly what she’s been told to say by ministers’, former civil servant leader says
Helen MacNamara, the former deputy cabinet secretary, was on the Today programme this morning talking about the Cat Little hearing. MacNamara, who is best known to the public for standing up to Dominic Cummings, and for her evidence to the Covid inquiry about this, said there would be a limit to what Little could say. Addressing the presenter, she explained:
double quotation mark You said in your introduction there that Cat Little was going to give an account supporting the prime minister. That is literally her job. Cat can’t sit before the committee and say what she thinks or what her own personal opinion is. Her little job is to sit there and say exactly what she’s been told to say by her ministers.
MacNamara said the head of the Cabinet Office should not be giving evidence to the foreign affairs committee anyway.
double quotation mark The foreign affairs select committee is not the select committee that Cat Little, the permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Office, should be going to …We spent a long time in really turbulent days during Brexit defending the principle that accountability in parliament is proper and that ministers are accountable, and the civil servants who work for them, are accountable for their committees. And this sort of vandalism, where the foreign affairs committee can just call whoever they like in public, [is improper].
Minister claims reports about cabinet divisions over Olly Robbins sacking ‘load of guff’
Alex Norris, the border security and asylum minister, was representing the government on the morning news programmes. He was there to promote the new UK-France small boats deal being signed today. Rajeev Syal has the details.
Inevitably, though, Norris was asked about the stories like the one in the Guardian (see 8.45am) about cabinet divisions over the sacking of Olly Robbins. He opted for the outright denial strategy, telling LBC:
double quotation mark No, it’s a load of guff. If I had a pound, certainly under the previous government, for the number of times I saw cabinet stories in the papers, my St George’s pints would probably be more multiple than there will be in reality.
You would expect a junior minister to say something like this; he won’t get points for accuracy, but he will get credit for loyalty, which matters more to No 10.
But it was an odd comparison to make. Under the Tories, there were multiple newspaper stories about cabinet splits. But they were also largely true, which is why the Conservatives got through three prime ministers in the course of the last parliament.
In an interview with Sky News, asked if he expected Keir Starmer to lead the party into the next elecion, Norris replied: “Yes.”
UK undershoots annual borrowing target by £700m
The UK government budget came in below its annual borrowing target by £700m, official figures show – but the Iran war is likely to blow a hole in Rachel Reeves’s carefully calculated fiscal “headroom” over the coming months. Tom Knowles has the story.
Top Cabinet Office official to give evidence to MPs about Peter Mandelson’s vetting
Good morning. As Kiran Stacey, Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot report in the Guardian’s splash, “Keir Starmer is looking increasingly isolated over his handling of the Peter Mandelson scandal with divisions emerging in cabinet over his decision to sack the Foreign Office civil servant Olly Robbins.”
And this morning the saga continues, with Cat Little, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, giving evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee about the Peter Mandelson vetting controversy.
The Little hearing is unlikely to be as revelatory as the Olly Robbins session on Tuesday. But Little is a key figure in this story, for two reasons. First, as head of the Cabinet Office, she is in charge of collecting all the documents relating to Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US, and Mandelson’s communications with ministers and officials, which have to be published as a result of the humble address passed by parliament. It was in this capacity that she discovered the UK Security Vetting (UKSV) document that revealed that the UKSV officials who interviewed Mandelson for his developed vetting (DV) advised that he should not get clearance. At a meeting on Tuesday last week she reported this bombshell news to the PM. Here is the extract from the minute of that meeting released by No 10.
double quotation mark Cat set out that the vetting process involved UKSV in the Cabinet Office producing a vetting file which included a recommendation on whether DV should be granted, which was then passed to the sponsor department, in this case FCDO. As part of the humble address process, that file had been shared with Cat. On reviewing the file she had therefore learned that the recommendation from the vetting officer had been that DV should not be granted to Peter Mandelson. There is some discretion for departments to proceed with clearance and the FCDO had exercised it in this case, granting Mandelson vetting clearance. Cat had not seen the audit trail for this decision so we did not yet know on what basis the decision had been taken, contrary to the recommendation.
Second, UKSV is part of the Cabinet Office, which means she has oversight that entire process.
After Keir Starmer learned about this information, and after it was made public by a Guardian report, he sacked Olly Robbins, the Foreign Office permanent secretary, on the grounds that he should have followed the UKSV advice in relation to Mandelson – or at least flagged up these concerns to No 10. As Robbins explained to the committee on Tuesday, he insists that UKSV can only make a recommendation, that the final decision was one for the Foreign Office and its own security team, and that he was fully entitled to conclude that the risks flagged up by UKSV could be managed.
Little may shed some light on this dispute, although we know whose side she will take. Unlike Robbins, she is still a serving civil servant; she works for the PM. It will be surprising if she says anything that will cause him significant embarrassment.
But these hearings are also interesting for what they tell us about the workings of the British state. The Cabinet Office is at the centre of the UK’s security network, and the DV process is one of the most secretive parts of this system. It will be odd if we don’t learn something.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Cat Little, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, gives evidence to the foreign affairs committee.
9.30am: The ONS publishes crime figures for England and Wales
Morning: Keir Starmer is on a St George’s Day-related visit in the north-east.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Afternoon: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in Pembrokeshire, with the Welsh Tory leader, Darren Millar.
Afternoon: Starmer attends a military planning meeting at Northwood headquarters as part of strait of Hormuz coalition process
4.30pm: Lord Hermer, the attorney general, speaks at an Oxford University event alongside the Council of Europe secretary general, Alain Berset.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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