In a statement to the House of Commons on 20 April 2026, the Prime Minister said the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States should not have been made and apologised for that decision. He also repeated an apology to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, saying they had been failed by the judgment taken. The main new disclosure was procedural. According to the Prime Minister's statement, Foreign Office officials granted Mandelson developed vetting clearance on 29 January 2025 even though UK Security Vetting had recommended that clearance be denied. The Prime Minister said that recommendation was not passed to him, to the Foreign Secretary, to the Deputy Prime Minister when she previously held the Foreign Secretary role, to any other minister, or to the former Cabinet Secretary, Sir Chris Wormald.
The statement set out a date-specific timeline. According to the Prime Minister, Cabinet Office due diligence on Mandelson's suitability took place in December 2024, written answers were returned on 10 December, final advice was received on 11 December, the appointment decision was taken on 18 December, and the public announcement followed on 20 December. The security vetting process then began on 23 December 2024. That sequencing matters because the Government said it reflected the normal process then in force for direct ministerial appointments made from outside the Civil Service: appointment first, vetting second, and entry to post only after clearance. The Prime Minister said that process has since been changed so that an appointment is no longer announced before security vetting has been completed.
On the Government's account, UK Security Vetting carried out the formal developed vetting assessment between 23 December 2024 and 28 January 2025, including two interviews with Mandelson. UKSV then advised the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on 28 January 2025 that developed vetting clearance should be denied. The following day, 29 January 2025, Foreign Office officials granted clearance regardless. The Prime Minister told the House that this was possible because, unlike in many departments where a UKSV decision is binding, the Foreign Office held the final departmental authority on developed vetting. He said that authority was suspended last week by his Chief Secretary once the case came to light.
A significant part of the statement dealt with the boundary between confidentiality and ministerial accountability. The Prime Minister accepted that personal material gathered during vetting must remain protected. He rejected, however, the idea that ministers could not be told the simple fact of UKSV's recommendation while still shielding detailed and sensitive information. That distinction runs through the entire statement. The Prime Minister's position was that officials could have protected the integrity of the vetting system and still told the appointing minister that UKSV had advised refusal. He told the House that, had that recommendation been shared before Mandelson entered post, the appointment would not have proceeded.
The Prime Minister then moved to September 2025, when Bloomberg published further reporting on Mandelson's history with Jeffrey Epstein. He said those reports made clear that answers given during the earlier due diligence exercise had not been truthful, and that Mandelson was dismissed. The Prime Minister also said the direct ministerial appointments process was tightened at that point, with full due diligence now required as standard, pre-appointment interviews where risks are identified, and written summaries provided to the appointing minister. The same passage matters for another reason. The Prime Minister said public announcements are no longer to be made until security vetting has been completed, closing the gap that previously allowed a politically decided appointment to be announced before clearance was finalised.
According to the statement, Sir Chris Wormald was asked in September 2025 to review the Mandelson appointment process, including the vetting stage. Sir Chris wrote on 16 September 2025 that the evidence he had seen suggested appropriate processes had been followed in the appointment and later withdrawal of the former ambassador in Washington. The Prime Minister told the House that Sir Chris had since made clear he was not told that UKSV had recommended denial of developed vetting clearance. The Prime Minister presented that omission as a second institutional failure. On his account, if the appointing minister was not informed in January 2025, the official asked to review the process in September 2025 should at minimum have been told the substance of the UKSV recommendation. Without that information, the review could not test whether the most serious decision point had been handled properly.
The statement also addressed the evidence later provided to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. On 16 September 2025, the Foreign Secretary and the then Foreign Office Permanent Secretary, Sir Olly Robbins, signed a submission stating that vetting had been conducted by UK Security Vetting on behalf of the department and had ended with developed vetting clearance being granted by the Foreign Office before Mandelson took up post. The Prime Minister said the Foreign Secretary signed that evidence without being told that UKSV had in fact recommended the opposite outcome. For parliamentary accountability, that is one of the most serious elements of the case. A committee of the House had asked whether concerns were raised, how the department responded, and whether any concerns were set aside. The Prime Minister's complaint was not simply that the department made a controversial clearance decision; it was that ministers were left unable to give Parliament a fully informed account of how that decision had been made.
The Prime Minister said a further review of national security vetting had already been under way after additional revelations in February 2026. He told the House that the terms of reference have now been widened so the exercise examines how decisions are made across the vetting system, and that Sir Adrian Fulford will lead it. Separately, the Government Security Group in the Cabinet Office has been asked to examine any security concerns raised during Mandelson's time in post. Taken together, the Government's position is that the Mandelson case exposed a failure in escalation, record-sharing and ministerial briefing rather than a routine dispute about personnel. The immediate practical effect is clearer process: no public announcement before vetting is complete, fuller due diligence before direct ministerial appointments, suspension of the Foreign Office's final say on developed vetting, and a commitment to comply with the House's Humble Address motion of 4 February. For ministers, officials and select committees, the statement sets a stricter test on when adverse vetting recommendations must be surfaced, even when the underlying personal material remains confidential.