Alex Burghart MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being very generous with his time. The Humble Address is obviously about Lord Mandelson’s appointment. However, the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith) was about two contracts, at least one of which, by direct award, went to a business that was a client of Global Counsel. The Prime Minister met that company while in Washington and it did not appear on his register of interests. Will the Minister assure the House that the Cabinet Secretary will look into the process that led to that direct award?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, that he will be graciously pleased to give directions to require the Government to lay before this House all papers relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment as His Majesty’s Ambassador to the United States of America, including but not confined to the Cabinet Office due diligence which was passed to Number 10, the Conflict of Interest Form Lord Mandelson provided to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), material the FCDO and the Cabinet Office provided to UK Security Vetting about Lord Mandelson’s interests in relation to Global Counsel, including his work in relation to Russia and China, and his links to Jeffrey Epstein, papers for, and minutes of, meetings relating to the decision to appoint Lord Mandelson, electronic communications between the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff and Lord Mandelson, and between ministers and Lord Mandelson, in the six months prior to his appointment, minutes of meetings between Lord Mandelson and ministers in the six months prior to his appointment, all information on Lord Mandelson provided to the Prime Minister prior to his assurance to this House on 10 September 2025 that ‘full due process was followed during this appointment’, electronic communications and minutes of all meetings between Lord Mandelson and ministers, Government officials and special advisers during his time as Ambassador, and the details of any payments made to Lord Mandelson on his departure as Ambassador and from the Civil Service. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing time for this Opposition day debate on presenting an Humble Address. I think the whole House has been shocked and disturbed by the revelations that have emerged once again over the past few days. Peter Mandelson, it seems, helped Jeffrey Epstein and his associates to make money. That money was used to run Mr Epstein’s paedophilic prostitution ring. Those who broke the law to give that information helped to make him rich and powerful, and they share in some of the responsibility for the crimes that were committed, because they gave him the power that he abused. No doubt for some of those involved, this was just a heady game of who had the best contacts and who could make the most money, played by a small set of men who took their thrill from existing outside the rules. It seems that the more this thread is pulled on, the more that network unravels, and the more shameful the whole episode appears. Generally, three main things must concern this House. The first is the now-emerging conduct of Peter Mandelson when he was a member of the previous Labour Administration between 2009 and 2010. I understand that that is now subject to a police investigation, and it is good to see that the Government are co-operating fully with that investigation. I am sure that, when the police have finished their inquiries, there will be future opportunities for us to discuss the matter in this House. The second issue, of similar import, is the judgment of the Prime Minister in appointing Peter Mandelson to our most senior diplomatic role.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  I will give way one more time, and then I must make some progress.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  I will give way to my right hon. Friend.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  As my right hon. Friend knows, the Government developed an appetite for candour and then lost their appetite. That Bill has disappeared into the ether. Too much candour would do this Government harm.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. The more we pull on this thread, the more we seem to find. All Peter Mandelson’s dealings, as a politician and as a businessman, should now be laid out for the House and the country to consider.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  I promised to give way to my old adversary the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) first. Then, I will happily give way to the hon. Lady.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  That is a significant representation from a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. It must be said that a failure of transparency at each stage of the process appears to have compounded the problems that the Government are now dealing with. What do we know now about the Prime Minister’s judgment and the process in No. 10 around this appointment? We now know that the Prime Minister was aware that Peter Mandelson had an ongoing friendship with Jeffrey Epstein that continued beyond the conviction for awful offences against children. Not only was that in the public domain, but a Financial Times journalist told the Prime Minister about it in January 2024. The Prime Minister admitted in the House today that it was part of the briefing note that he received from the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team. We fully expect the report compiled by that team—the due diligence report—to appear for this House to consider. Reports on that document have appeared in the New Statesman this morning. We are told that the due diligence report contains warnings of “potential conflicts of interest surrounding Global Counsel”, the lobbying firm established by Peter Mandelson, in which he retained a stake of around 28%. We know that Global Counsel had Russian and Chinese clients, about which, according to the reports in the press this morning, the propriety and ethics team had serious concerns. We know—or at least we are told in the press—that the due diligence report also referred to Mandelson’s ongoing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, stating clearly that Mandelson’s relationship had gone over the point of conviction, and drawing attention to the fact that Mandelson had used Epstein’s hospitality in America and Paris while the latter was in prison.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  I will give way in a moment; I would like to make a little progress. It was reported this morning in the press that in September, following Peter Mandelson’s sacking, there was a Cabinet Office investigation into any further wrongdoing. Will the Paymaster General confirm whether he is aware of such a report and at least assure the House that, if such a report comes to light during his investigations, that will be published in response to this Humble Address? The Conservatives fully understand that the Government have a duty to protect national security and our international relationships—of course they do. They must also understand, however, that security and our international affairs are completely entwined with this issue. The Paymaster General will have seen this morning that the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, has announced that Poland, one of our strongest allies in Europe, will examine the paedophile’s links with the Russian intelligence services. As he said, “More and more leads, more and more information, and more and more commentary…all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services.” Thousands of the documents released over the weekend refer to Putin and thousands more to Moscow. We know that Epstein recruited young Russian women and we know that he held parties in Russia. In some emails, I understand, Epstein said he could offer “insight” on Donald Trump to Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister. Those are all the ingredients of classic kompromat and this House cannot be deprived of consideration of such issues in the case of the Mandelson papers.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  I will give way one more time and then I intend to make some progress.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  My right hon. and learned Friend speaks from a position of experience. He is entirely right; the House is fortunate to have the ISC and that is one of the functions that it can perform. The Government can have reassurance on national security and the House can have reassurance that no material is being kept from it that the Government might find embarrassing. In his remarks, will the Paymaster General, who I know will have had nothing to do with this and who I know is a man of integrity, think seriously about the options of gisting and the role that the ISC can play in that and make sure that the Government are not marking their own homework? It is important that our constituents and this House have confidence in what the Government provide us with. Before I hand over to other Members, let me move briefly on to the conduct of Lord Mandelson while he was our ambassador in Washington, which I think is relevant to our debate because it again exposes the Prime Minister’s lack of judgment in appointing him. There is obviously strong evidence to suggest that Mandelson behaved entirely inappropriately when he was Secretary of State under the last Labour Government, but equally big questions are now outstanding about what was happening in 2025 in Washington—as I said, this is relevant now. On 27 February 2025, the Prime Minister, while in Washington, visited the American data and AI company Palantir at its headquarters. The meeting did not appear in the Prime Minister’s register of visits; it only came to light later. Palantir, we should remind ourselves, was a client of Global Counsel, the company in which Peter Mandelson had a commanding share. Later that year, Palantir received from this Government a £240 million deal. That deal was granted by direct award. Given the allegations now coming to light about Mandelson’s conduct, will the Minister assure the House that the Cabinet Secretary will review the circumstances around the award of that contract, and assure himself that there are no other such contracts, no other undisclosed meetings, and that the Government will go through all communications and messages that Mandelson sent out while he was ambassador, some of which we must assume, were sent to old business contacts, a potential few business contacts, and so on? The Prime Minister knew that Peter Mandelson had maintained an unhealthy relationship with a man who was a convicted paedophile, and he appointed him to the role of ambassador anyway. Everybody in this House should be shocked by that. It must be concluded that had the Prime Minister been pressed on that point at the time, the appointment would not have been made, because the Prime Minister knew, his aides knew—but the appointment was made anyway. What else did he know? Only after this Humble Address, and only if the Government treat it in good faith, will we know that. I very much hope that we do not find that there are gaps in our security and vetting process. If there are, the Government will be able to fix them. I think it also likely that we will see reports that consistently raised concerns which were swept away. It will then be the duty of the Government to disclose who swept them away, and why. Ultimate responsibility must rest with the Prime Minister. It is time for him to take responsibility.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  I am glad that the hon. Lady agrees with us that the ISC should be used in this context. I am glad that there is agreement between her and me that those on the Government Front Bench should use the ISC to act in this way. I hope that other Labour Members will take the same view as that extremely experienced parliamentarian.

• 2 Feb 2026 · US Department of Justice Release of Files · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. The crimes of Jeffrey Epstein were truly terrible—paedophilia, sex trafficking, child prostitution. It was an awful abuse of power, and it is of course a great embarrassment to our country that its most senior ambassador should have been caught up with a man like him. In this latest set of releases from the US Department of Justice, it is clearer than ever that theirs was a relationship built not just on affection, but on the transfer of money from Epstein to Mandelson’s family and the transfer of information from Mandelson to Epstein. In some cases, this was apparently market-sensitive information that Mandelson received only by dint of being a member of the Labour Government. So we of course welcome the belated announcement that there will be an investigation into Mandelson’s conduct while he was a Minister, but this should have happened long ago. I say that because we know that, in February last year, Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister, wrote to the Cabinet Secretary explicitly asking for an investigation into the “veracity of information contained in the Epstein papers about the sale of assets arising from the banking collapse and communications about them between Lord Mandelson and Mr Epstein.” That investigation never happened. In any case, I am afraid that the investigation announced today alone will not do. It is not enough to consider Mandelson’s historical conduct; there also needs to be an investigation into his behaviour while he was our ambassador in Washington. Given that he abused his previous position, it is entirely conceivable that he abused his most recent one. For example, I understand that on 27 February last year, Mandelson arranged for the Prime Minister to meet Palantir, a client of Mandelson’s company, Global Counsel. How many more such meetings were there, and what other information was shared? We all have a right to know. Likewise, the Government cannot hide from their responsibility in having made Mandelson their ambassador in the first place. This was a political appointment, and it happened only because of political pressure. So one of two things must be true: either there was the most terrible failure of the vetting system, or the Government chose to brush that vetting information away. Both are very serious, but the Government must now be honest with us about which it was. It seems very unlikely that the Government’s vetting system broke down entirely. Indeed, on 10 September, the Prime Minister told the House that “full due process was followed during this appointment”. —[ Official Report , 10 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 859.] Can it really be the case that this “full due process” did not pick up the extent of the relationship? On 3 November, Olly Robbins, the then permanent secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, told the Foreign Affairs Committee: “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...we can confidently say that the relationship with Epstein was indeed surfaced”. So the Government knew that Mandelson had a long-maintained and unhealthy relationship with Epstein, yet they continued with their appointment anyway. The question is: who in No. 10 knew what and when? The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister has a duty to tell this House precisely what the Prime Minister knew when he made the appointment, and to disclose the documents that the Prime Minister saw. If the Prime Minister genuinely did not know, somebody must have done. Who was it? Was it his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who is reported to have personally pushed the appointment? Was it the now Deputy Prime Minister, who was then the Foreign Secretary and who would have been party to some of the information? It is time for the Government to be open and clear with us all. Something went very badly wrong with this appointment. It has caused very great embarrassment to this country and it is time that someone took responsibility.

• 22 Jan 2026 · UK-EU Relations · Hansard source

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  Since the Paymaster General was last in the Commons, the Health Secretary has said that Britain should rejoin the customs union, the Deputy Prime Minister has suggested rejoining the customs union, 13 Labour MPs have gone against the Whip and voted with the Liberal Democrats in favour of a customs union, 80% of Labour voters at the last election have said they want to rejoin the customs union, and the Business and Trade Secretary has said that it would be “crazy” not to join the customs union. It would seem that the only people in Labour opposed to the customs union are the Prime Minister and the Paymaster General. The right hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that in this one regard, I do not think he is crazy at all—I think he is doing the right thing. Will he tell the House why he thinks all the other members of the Labour party are so wrong?

• 22 Jan 2026 · UK-EU Relations · Hansard source

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  I certainly support the right hon. Gentleman in telling the rest of the Labour party that they are wrong, although, given the success of the Labour Back Benchers in forcing U-turns on the Prime Minister recently, I wonder how long that position will hold. Earlier this month, the Prime Minister told the BBC that he wants “closer alignment” with the single market—a serious policy development on which we have had no statement in the Commons. I hope that will be addressed very soon. Closer alignment will, of course, mean dynamic alignment, which will mean Britain following rules over which we have had no say. The Opposition will respectfully oppose such a move. In November, Downing Street sources told journalists that it was accepted that the UK would have to pay billions of pounds for closer alignment and market access. Will the Paymaster General confirm to the House that that is his understanding?

• 22 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  At the risk of overworking the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, I would like to ask him a question. It is boring but important; my last boring question was to the Paymaster General. The Opposition have found that his Department often refuses to release information to Members in response to parliamentary questions, but then releases it in response to freedom of information requests. Does he agree that, in principle, that is wrong?

• 22 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In his role as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, will he please write to all other Government Departments to make sure that the good example that will now be set by the Cabinet Office is followed by other Departments?

• 22 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that reply; I really appreciate it. In his role as chief of staff to the Prime Minister—

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  I meant to say, “the joint first best part of the New Forest”. The Secretary of State has invoked the Joint Committee on Human Rights, but it is my understanding that when it wrote its report, it was unaware that the Northern Ireland Veterans Movement was being heard in the Supreme Court, and I rather think that that may have had a profound effect on what it wrote.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  Once again, my hon. Friend is quite right, because if the remedial order goes through both Houses and the Supreme Court has not opined, from the next day civil cases will reopen and military veterans will be involved in such actions.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  Yes, my right hon. and very learned Friend. The truth is that, if one looks back at the debates on the Human Rights Act, one can see that the purpose of section 10 is to make sure that the Government cannot use a remedial order—an incredibly powerful tool, a statutory instrument that can strike down primary legislation—unless the case is fully decided. In this case, it clearly is not; it is open. That is why the Government are acting ultra vires. Let me return briefly to the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), who represents the best part of the New Forest.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend has always had a very good head for what is popular. I will check his figures, but I am sure they are correct, and he has made an important point. We cannot pretend that there was no support for what we were doing in Northern Ireland, because there are plenty of people in Northern Ireland who would like to move on. There are plenty of people who respect the decision to draw a line and move on.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  It is an honour and a privilege to speak in this important debate. It is particularly important because there are some people watching this afternoon who themselves were on the line of action in what was surely one of the most difficult operations that British armed forces have ever had to deploy in. I know that some veterans are with us today in the House, and some are sitting on these green Benches. One of the things that all Members have a duty to keep in mind throughout this debate is our responsibility to them, the people who ultimately enabled peace to happen in Northern Ireland. As we have discussed at a number of parliamentary events, we are opposed to the Government’s approach. We think that the Government have options that they are not taking, and that they are both compromising veterans’ peace of mind and endangering our military capability into the future. I noticed in The Telegraph today an important letter from some retired Special Air Service officers, who said that “peace requires compromise, restraint, and the decision to stop refighting the past”. The legislation that the previous Government brought in was specifically designed to try to draw a line under all of the events that had happened—not so that information would not be provided to families and victims, because the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery enabled that to happen, but so that we could move on from a new phase of the troubles conflict that was being fought in the courts. We will obviously have a chance to go through what we are debating today in greater detail when the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill returns to the House for consideration in Committee of the whole House. With the legislation that we are debating, which seeks to delete parts of the 2023 legacy Act following the ruling of the Belfast Court of Appeal last year, the Government are saying that they have no choice but to act as they have and no choice but to try to change the legislation by means of remedial order. We do not believe that is the whole story. When they came to power, they had the option of appealing that decision by the Court of Appeal in Belfast. We know that, because the previous Conservative Administration had received legal advice saying that not only was a legal challenge possible, but had a high chance of success. Indeed, many legal experts outside of this House, in think-tanks such as Policy Exchange, set out why that might be the case. The Government have implied two reasons why they dropped their appeal. The Secretary of State said in the House today, I think, and also on 17 December, that he believed that there was a moral outrage at the idea of immunity and a need to respect human rights law. On their own grounds, those are respectable positions, but they are also clearly not quite true. In the first instance, the human rights argument cannot stand on its own merits, because there were grounds to appeal, and the Government chose not to. The Government never found out what the actual position on human rights might have been, had they gone to the highest court in the land. On the idea that immunity is a moral outrage, I fear that the Labour party is being at best disingenuous. I say that because the Secretary of State and other Labour Members often refer to the immunity in our 2023 Act. There was immunity under that Act, but it was conditional on people giving up information to ICRIR. That was not a novel concept. Indeed, that concept was a cornerstone of the legislation introduced after 1998. There are plenty of examples, such as the legislation around decommissioning of weapons, which actively allowed for the destruction of forensic evidence that could have led to prosecutions. The victims’ remains legislation allowed people to come forward and tell the authorities where victims were buried without fear of prosecution. We might call that immunity in return for information. We have already discussed the letters of comfort. There can be no doubt that John Downey effectively received immunity for the Hyde Park bombing case by dint of his letter of comfort, and so with the royal prerogative of mercy and so, most significantly of all, with the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill, which Peter Hain—now Lord Hain, then Secretary of State—brought to this House in 2005. That Bill explicitly created—or would have, had it been passed—immunity for terrorists. That was immunity for terrorists, not for everyone. It was only when, under pressure from families and the Conservative party, the Government agreed to bring veterans into that legislation that it was dropped, because Sinn Féin ceased to support it. I say that respectfully, because the now Secretary of State was in the Cabinet at the time and would have been bound by collective responsibility on this issue.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  Again, I agree with my right hon. Friend. In some quarters, there is an industry that I fear is allowing victims to believe that their chances of success are far greater than they are in practice. That is not pleasant, so we have to ask ourselves why the Government dropped their appeal.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  I suspect very strongly that the hon. Gentleman is right. I suspect that this is bound up in the agreement that the Secretary of State made with the Irish Government. He can correct that later if he wishes to. There were some things in that agreement that I welcomed at the time and which I welcome again now. If it leads to the Irish Government opening their books and being clear about collusion between the Garda and the Provisional IRA, I would welcome that. What I cannot welcome, thought, is the fact that there was an opportunity in that agreement to ask the Republic of Ireland to open its own inquiry into the Omagh bombing. At the time, it was recommended to the British Government that we should have our own full inquiry, but it was deemed to be pretty much a necessity for a similar inquiry to be conducted on the other side of the border, so that there was the opportunity to compel witnesses to give evidence under oath about what was known and about what, if any, collusion took place. I am very sorry that that opportunity was missed.