David Davis MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  There is no doubt that the right hon. Lady is correct. Frankly, I am going to try not to make this ad hominem about the Ministers who made decisions; we need to make that decision later, as it were. She is right that it has diminished the standing of our Prime Minister, and I regret that. Although we are the Opposition, I want this Government to succeed in the national interest, and this is doing the opposite of that. The ambassador’s conduct, both prior to appointment and during, must reflect the highest standards of integrity—that is fundamental, and it is true for any ambassador.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member has made a theoretical argument and a general argument, but the actual argument is that Karen Pierce was a brilliant campaigner who would never have made the mistakes made by Lord Mandelson, which he alludes to, and she should not have been replaced.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  Exactly, and in fact earlier than that point. I will come back to that when I talk briefly about the vetting process. What precisely did the Prime Minister learn from reading the Bloomberg emails that was not already known about Lord Mandelson from public information and vetting done before the appointment? Each day that goes by, we see more shocking revelations not only about his misconduct and his links to Jeffrey Epstein, but about the failures of both the vetting process and the political judgment of those at the top of Government. I say to the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) that that relates not just to their political judgment, but to their moral standards and the equity in how they apply those moral standards across the board. That brings us to the question: what happened to the vetting process? Most of what I have described was in the public domain. It does not take James Bond; Google could do this. What was not in the public domain was in the official records, or known to the intelligence agencies—in other words, it was all available to the Government. We know there was a two-page propriety and ethics briefing, which should have flagged concerns, but it merely triggered an unpenetrating email inquiry. That goes straight to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), which is: where were the questions? Someone does not just send a three-line email and forget about it; they pursue the questions and cross-question the person under suspicion.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  I am being frowned at by Mr Speaker for taking so much time. I will give way for the last time.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  No, I really am coming to an end. I will quote just one of them. This is a long-standing senior Labour Member: “I care that this culture of turning a blind eye to horrendous behaviour is endemic at the top of society”. I agree with him. When individuals with such associations are ushered back into the heart of Government, are we not right to ask what standards now govern appointments to public life? Impunity is not a right. Impropriety is not a technicality. And survivors of crime should not have to do the heavy lifting of holding the powerful to account. I mentioned at the beginning of my speech that a Bill has today been presented to the House imposing a duty of candour on public authorities and public officials. My last and single question to the Minister is this: will his Government now live up to the words in that Bill?

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the appointment process and the circumstances leading to the dismissal of the former United Kingdom Ambassador to the United States, Lord Mandelson. Sometimes exquisite coincidences happen in this place. We have just seen a Bill presented on the topic of public office accountability by the immediate past Foreign Secretary, the now Justice Secretary. I will just read to the House the first line of its description: “a Bill to impose a duty on public authorities and public officials to act with candour, transparency and frankness”. I think I might return to those issues in the course of what I have to say. As I have said, this is a matter of utmost concern across the House. It is an issue that does not just concern the Conservative party, the Scottish National party or the DUP; Members from all parts of the House are worried about it, as we have seen in the newspapers. The Government have key questions to answer, and as I said yesterday, the central question is: who knew what, and when? Let us be clear, though. There are many questions on many levels in this matter, and the Government must answer them all; so far, they have singularly failed to do so. The questions fall naturally into four categories. First, was Peter Mandelson ever an appropriate character to appoint as our ambassador? [Hon. Members: “No.”] Well, we will get to that later. Secondly, what was the procedure for vetting, was it properly followed, and why has it gone so horribly wrong? Thirdly, what has happened in the last couple of weeks to lead to the demise of the former ambassador—who made the critical decisions and why? Fourthly, what do we do now? How do we make this Government tell the House and the nation the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth—which in itself would be a novelty for Lord Mandelson? Let us begin with whether Lord Mandelson was ever an appropriate selection. As I said yesterday, our ambassador in Washington stands at the nexus of our most important bilateral relationship. For those who have not served in government, it is the one bilateral relationship run by No. 10, not the Foreign Office. That is because it is so important, and it is a role of exceptional sensitivity. More classified information crosses the ambassador’s desk than gets to most Cabinet Ministers. Indeed, in British embassies, the agencies report to the ambassador. It is not the same in American embassies, where the CIA does what it wants. Our agencies report to the ambassador, so it is a sensitive post. Today, Peter Kyle—I have forgotten his new post—said that global circumstances dictate that the position of this particular ambassador is more important than it has ever been, and it could easily go terribly wrong. The failure to appoint the right person has already had a serious and deleterious impact on the national interest.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  Had the hon. Gentleman been here before the last election, he would have sat in this Chamber, I hope, and heard me opine on all those subjects and raise prospective laws to deal with those oligarchs, laws that, sadly, this Government have failed to carry through. That, then, is the backdrop. Mr Deripaska’s visa was revoked by the Americans in 2006, so Mandelson had no excuse for not knowing about his activities, yet as European trade commissioner he saw fit to accept hospitality from Deripaska on multiple occasions over several years, which included visiting him in Moscow and being flown by his private jet to stay at his dacha in Siberia and on his private yacht in the Mediterranean—all while considering whether to give Russian aluminium access to the European market. Deripaska’s activities were known to the British security services, and briefings were available to Mandelson, so, again, there is no excuse. He did this in the full knowledge of who he was dealing with. It was in this position that Mandelson promoted and signed off concessions to Russian aluminium companies, which ultimately benefited Mr Deripaska, or his companies, to the tune of $200 million a year. Although it did not actually happen, one company was due to be the subject of an initial public offering—due to be floated—shortly thereafter. A $200 million change in profits tends to mean a multibillion-dollar change in value, and that will have gone into the pocket of Mr Deripaska. As we all know, Deripaska is a nominee of Putin, so we can assume that a large chunk of it went to Putin as well. In 2008 Mandelson was, very controversially, raised to the peerage by Gordon Brown and appointed Business Secretary. His contact with Epstein did not end. As Epstein was pleading guilty to child sex offences, Mandelson emailed him: “I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened... Your friends stay with you and love you.” Little remorse there, shall we say, and little pity for the victims. After Lord Mandelson left office when Labour lost the election in 2010, he founded a lobbying firm, Global Counsel. Controversially, he did not name his clients. The House of Lords has rather slack rules about this, so somebody can create a company and just declare that they get however much money from the company, but they do not declare who the customers really are. I do not have documentary records on this, so I am not going to name the companies I am talking about, but there are Russian companies—extremely dubious Russian companies—and Chinese companies. I am looking at my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), who would recognise a number of the Chinese companies because he has campaigned about them, but I will leave it there. In the context of Lord Mandelson’s appointment to Washington—and bear in mind that this is all to do with a judgment made about his being the ambassador in Washington—it is his close association with the organs of the Chinese state that should have raised most red flags, if the House will forgive the pun. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China presented a dossier to US Senators, which provoked enough concern that they passed it to the FBI. This may have been a reason—and here I am surmising—for the purported concerns about whether the Trump Administration would allow Mandelson’s accreditation back in January.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  I will give way, but then I must make some progress.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  I understand all too well the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. Many have made it in the newspapers, although generally anonymously. A double standard applies to the top of the Labour party—Labour royalty, if you like—as opposed to other people who have been punished for doing their job, representing their people and so on. He has got a point.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  I am going to be very gentle. Let me just say that we are talking about a very serious issue, in which the national interest is engaged, and about somebody who in my view has used his public position to his own advantage and to the disadvantage of the state. That is not true of some candidate working in a junior role for the company, but it is true of the man who created that company and used it to promote his own interests. To come back to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, from my point of view—and this is personal rather than political—even more worrying were the attitudes struck by Mandelson in February 2021 when, during a lobbying meeting on behalf of his rich clients, he told Chinese Premier Li Keqiang that the critics of Beijing’s human rights record would be “proved wrong”. That astonishing statement was followed later in 2021 by Mandelson being the only Labour peer to vote—against a three-line Whip—against a genocide amendment that would have meant this country had to reconsider any trade deal with a country found by the High Court to be committing genocide, and most specifically China was in the crosshairs. Frankly, it would appear that Lord Mandelson has subcontracted his conscience for money.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. I certainly think that that would be the right way to go for political appointments. It would probably be the right way to go for the top dozen embassies. I would not worry about all of them, without being rude to—well, I won’t pick a country. That would just be meaningless, but the top dozen are well worth doing.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. When we look at the mechanisms engaged, as I hope we will in the course of this debate, we will see why the Prime Minister made the wrong decision. There is no doubt in my mind that he did.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is exactly right, and the Senators to whom these documents were sent are very responsible ones. They would not frivolously pass on such documents to the FBI, and the FBI would not frivolously accept them and investigate.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. He is right and I will reiterate the point. In addition to what my right hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) said, there should have been a fully developed vetting process and that appears not to have happened. There is a vetting unit in the Foreign Office and a vetting unit in the Cabinet Office, and normally one of them would have been engaged on this. There have been claims that developed vetting happens after an appointment. No, it does not. For existing ambassadors who are on a five-year vetting cycle, sure. For ambassadors or officers who are being read into a new class of material, sure. But for this—an outsider coming into the most sensitive job in Government—certainly not.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  I say to my right hon. Friend that the Prime Minister gave what was clearly—what can I say?—a lawyer’s answer to that question, which as we all know is not a proper answer at all. No. 10 was well aware that Mandelson had continued his relationship with Epstein after he was convicted as a paedophile. How the Prime Minister could possibly have thought it was wise to appoint a man who was on record consorting with alleged murderers and convicted paedophiles to a position of privilege and power is, to me, utterly unfathomable.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right. We will come to a number of circumstances in which information was available and should have been, but was not, acted upon. This was not as hard as some may try to portray it as being: after all, the appointment did not come as a surprise. Lord Mandelson himself was clearly campaigning to become the ambassador after failing to win the chancellorship of Oxford University. Indeed, someone told me that he was actually campaigning for the ambassadorship while also campaigning for the chancellorship, so he was after two jobs, not one. It was clear at an early stage that he was going to attempt to do this, and there was widespread discussion at the time about his suitability for the role, so there was plenty of time for a preliminary investigative or vetting process. There was, and is, a vast amount of data in the public domain. Most of what I will speak of today is public domain material—I will explain when it is not. What would those conducting that vetting process be looking for? A number of us on these Benches and, I would imagine, on most Benches have been through such processes ourselves. Traditionally they would review the history and personality of the candidate, assessing risks, such as the risk of the candidate being susceptible to undue influence, or, in extreme examples, blackmail—the Russians and the Chinese collect kompromat all the time; the risk of the candidate abusing or misusing the role; the risk of the candidate doing something that would cause reputational damage; or the risk, with which some on the Labour Front Bench may have difficulties and which they may find rather old-fashioned, that the candidate is too morally flawed to be given a major role in any case and fails a simple ethical test, which is where we may arrive in a moment. I am afraid that I am old-fashioned. I view ethical tests as an absolute, which cannot be traded off against some benefit or other. In the history that I am about to detail, we see a Peter Mandelson who is easily dazzled by wealth and glamour and is willing to use his public position to pursue those things for himself. This was visible very early in his career, even to his friends. In 1998, he was sacked as Trade and Industry Secretary for failing to declare a pretty enormous interest-free loan that he had received from Geoffrey Robinson. At that time Mr Robinson’s businesses were being investigated by Mandelson’s Department, so there was a clear clash of interests, and Mandelson did not even declare the loan. That was the first occasion on which we saw so publicly the abiding flaws in his character, which would generally disqualify any normal person for a job as important as this. Even his friends saw that. One of his flaws was described plainly by one of his friends back then, who said: “Peter was living beyond his means, pretending to be something he’s not, and therefore he was beholden to people.” The important bit is that last phrase: he was beholden to people. It was a characteristic that was displayed time and again as he sought to use his position to curry favour with very wealthy and very powerful people who were either current or future benefactors. This was repeated in 2001, when Lord Mandelson was again sacked after attempting to broker a British passport for Mr Hinduja, a wealthy donor to the Millennium Dome project, with which he was involved. Mandelson attempted to influence the Home Office to give Mr Hinduja a passport when Mr Hinduja and his brother were under investigation in the Bofors weapons contract scandal—again, a dubious reason. Incidentally, it was at about that time that his association with Epstein started, and the infamous birthday book entries date from then.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  I agree—the hon. Member is right. Lord Mandelson’s continued support of Epstein shows an attitude that I find completely reprehensible in exactly that respect, because Epstein’s victims were women—young women, girls, children. So, yes, I do agree. It has long been clear that Mandelson was not suitable to be our ambassador, so the question is: what changed last week? The Bloomberg emails revealing further details of Epstein’s relationship with him and the birthday book in which he referred to Epstein as his “best pal” were with Mandelson by Monday evening and with the Foreign Office overnight or by Tuesday morning at the latest. The Prime Minister is said to have known of the investigation by Tuesday afternoon, but not of the content of the emails. Why, when our most important diplomat in our most important international relationship is under question or under investigation, would the Prime Minister not want to know the details of the investigation immediately? We understand that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, was talking to Mandelson all day on Tuesday, so what was Mandelson saying to McSweeney and was this passed to the Prime Minister? One of the things I would ask the Minister is if, later on, he can give the House an undertaking that we can have a record of that conversation, because we need to know. Mandelson gave an immediate interview on Wednesday morning—hours before Prime Minister’s questions—admitting that more embarrassing revelations would come out. Mandelson’s past scandals and his links to Epstein were crystal clear by the time the Prime Minister rose to speak in PMQs last Wednesday.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  I am very glad to say that I am not the Prime Minister’s speechwriter, but all I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that I hope the issue does not come up, because it would undoubtedly be embarrassing and diplomatically problematic for the Prime Minister. Astonishingly, after being sacked twice for misdemeanours, in 2004 Lord Mandelson was appointed by Tony Blair to be the European trade commissioner. He was, as it were, given a third chance. As the trade commissioner, he was criticised on numerous occasions for accepting lavish hospitality from companies on whose commercial interests he was in the process of ruling—whether the company concerned was Microsoft, an Italian shoe producer or whatever—which, for some reason, often involved free luxury cruises. He saw nothing wrong with such apparently compromising behaviour, and in that category, indeed rather at the top of it, was his association with the Russian oligarch and gangster capitalist Oleg Deripaska. Let us be clear who we are talking about here, because most Members probably do not know much about him. Mr Deripaska was the winner of the battle for control of the Russian aluminium industry, a battle in which roughly 100 people were murdered. In court reports, Interpol documents and American Government publications, Deripaska has faced serious allegations of murder, bribery, extortion, and involvement in organised crime. This is a truly bad man.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  I have already said that my view is that ethical standards are absolute, so there should not be a trade-off. Let us take this, for a second, as a practical decision and take Mandelson at his own measure. He loves being called the dark lord and all the rest of it. He preens himself on being a master of the dark arts: spin, message management, political tactics and manipulation of the truth—a repertoire of things that most people would not be proud of. If the Government think that those skills actually make up for his sins, well no. First, he is not as good as he is cracked up to be, frankly. He is being measured—remember this—against Karen Pierce, the officer in place who was probably the best ambassador in Washington and certainly the most revered, and, after her, Tim Barrow, who was our ambassador to the European Union during Brexit and the National Security Adviser. He knows all these things to the tips of fingers. Was Lord Mandelson better than them? Pull the other one. I am coming to the end, Mr Speaker, before you frown any more. No. 10 claims that Mandelson was economical with the truth. Mandelson claims he told the whole truth. Both statements cannot be true. The questions I pose to the Minister are these. Will the Government rule out Mandelson being brought back into Government? No. 10 refused to rule out giving him another job last week. If Mandelson withheld information during the vetting process, will he lose the Labour Whip? I am looking at Mr Burgon when I say that. Is he going to have to resign from the House of Lords? Will Lord Mandelson be receiving compensation? Some reports in the media suggest we will pay £100,000 of taxpayers’ money. Will the Prime Minister, his chief of staff, his Cabinet Secretary and the permanent secretary to the FCDO appear before the Select Committees of the House to give evidence? Will the Minister provide the House with the documents—the propriety and ethics team report and the developed vetting report, if it exists—required to answer our questions as to who knew what and when? There are many quotes in the newspapers from those in the Minister’s own party about their horror regarding the Prime Minister’s decisions and processes.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States: Appointment and Dismissal · Hansard source

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  I seek leave to propose that the House debates a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely the appointment process and circumstances leading to the dismissal of the former ambassador of the United Kingdom to the United States, Lord Mandelson. This is a matter of utmost concern across the House and across party lines. Our ambassador in Washington stands at the centre of Britain’s most vital bilateral relationship. It is a role of exceptional sensitivity, with more classified intelligence crossing the ambassador’s desk than reaches most Cabinet Ministers. The post carries immense responsibility. The ambassador represents Britain’s interests to our most powerful ally and, in so doing, shapes our reputation abroad. His conduct, both prior to appointment and during, must reflect the highest standards of professionalism, discretion and integrity—nothing less will do. Lord Mandelson failed that test long before last week’s revelation, long before the understandable public outrage at the disgraceful behaviour with the paedophile Epstein, and long before the families of his victims quite rightly criticised the appointment. What was public about Mandelson’s past is more than enough to disqualify him from consideration for ambassador, from his resignation from Government not once but twice—first in 1998 for not telling the truth about an interest-free loan, and then in 2001 for helping a wealthy businessman get a passport—to his links to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a gangster capitalist who benefited to the tune of many millions of pounds from policies promoted and signed off by Lord Mandelson when he was EU Trade Commissioner, and, particularly relevant today, his commercial links defending China. All of that was in the public domain before the Prime Minister appointed Lord Mandelson as our ambassador. Why was it ever thought acceptable to appoint a man with such a chequered and murky background to such a vitally important position? The House needs to know what vetting was done and when, what the opinions were of the Foreign Office, the Foreign Secretary, the Cabinet Office and the security services, and when the Prime Minister was told. We need to know who knew what, and when. The Government must take the House with them on these appointments, but their behaviour to date on this issue has been marked by obfuscation and delay, by recrimination and cover-up. It is not just a question of the Prime Minister’s political judgment, important as that is; it is a question of ethics. It is a question of what is deemed acceptable behaviour, when in positions of power. The House must have the opportunity to debate this matter before the recess.

• 11 Sept 2025 · UK Ambassador to the US: Appointment Process · Hansard source

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  The House needs to understand the sheer size of the failure of the vetting process here. It is in the public domain that Peter Mandelson had to resign for not telling the truth about an interest-free loan, and that he had to resign on a second occasion because he had helped a business friend to get a passport. Beyond that, there are still unresolved doubts about his behaviour as the European Trade Commissioner, when he gave concessions to the Russians, which helped his other dubious close friend, Mr Deripaska. On the positive vetting process for when Peter Mandelson came to be a Minister again in 2010, section 3.1 of the ministerial code says: “Ministers…must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise.” Secretaries of State do not have private diaries. He spent time in Mr Epstein flat, it seems quietly meeting other people involved in the Sempra deal. That cannot be seen as following his proper duties as Secretary of State. It was in the Government documents—it does not have to be a private email. Was that investigated, and was a judgment made on it?

• 11 Sept 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Industry · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my parliamentary neighbour on his accession. It is good to see his talents recognised. Much of the technology currently used in sustainable aviation fuel is of foreign origin. Part of the reason for that is that no Government body directly supports the development of core technologies used for that, supporting only the development of production facilities. The Aerospace Technology Institute, for example, should be able to invest in research and development programmes to develop sustainable fuel, but is currently not permitted to do so. Will the Minister look at allowing that, so we can accelerate the development of our own technology in this area?

• 11 Sept 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Industry · Hansard source

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  19. What steps she is taking to support the sustainable aviation fuel industry.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Omar al-Bayoumi: Arrest and Extradition · Hansard source

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  (Urgent Question): To ask the Minister of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the 2001 arrest of Saudi national Omar al-Bayoumi and the failure to extradite Mr al-Bayoumi for his alleged involvement in the 11 September terror attacks.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Omar al-Bayoumi: Arrest and Extradition · Hansard source

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  Yesterday’s edition of The S unday Times revealed that in the aftermath of 9/11 the Metropolitan police were forced to release Omar al-Bayoumi, who was believed to be a Saudi intelligence agent accused of supporting the hijackers, because the FBI withheld evidence. Arrested in Birmingham 10 days after 9/11, al-Bayoumi was taken to London to be interrogated by Met counter-terror officers. The FBI declined to provide those officers with vital evidence of al-Bayoumi’s involvement in 9/11. The evidence included a hand-drawn aircraft diagram, trajectory calculations matching the Pentagon attack, and an address book with the attackers’ code name—a code name that bin Laden himself did not disclose until a year later. The FBI’s refusal to disclose this evidence prevented al-Bayoumi’s extradition to the United States. FBI records show that in 1999, al-Bayoumi met two officials from the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Those officials were assessed to be part of a network of individuals connected with the facilitation of two 9/11 attackers. A separate 2017 assessment by the FBI’s Arabic specialists concluded that Mr al-Bayoumi was a co-optee of the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency, which is its secret service. A full investigation by the Intelligence and Security Committee is needed. It must investigate why the FBI clearly avoided extraditing Mr al-Bayoumi and exactly what was the involvement of the Saudi Government, in particular their Ministry of Islamic Affairs and secret service. As the Minister said, it is nearly 25 years since 9/11. In that time we have extradited many innocent people to America, but we failed to extradite someone who deserved to be sent over there. We need to get to the bottom of this, in part so that we do not see this terrible atrocity happen again.