Jeremy Wright MP: speeches

Speeches

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, and I agree with the case she is making. She is right that wide Humble Addresses are deleterious, both because there is an opportunity cost—while civil servants are looking at that, they are not looking at something else—and a real financial cost. However, does she agree that the right moment to push back on an excessively broad Humble Address is when it is being decided on? The Government have a majority; it is there so that the Government can get their way. Would it not have been better for them to have said on 4 February, “This is too broad. We will only agree to something narrower”?

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in addition to the concern he has expressed that there is no evidence of mitigations being put in place, there is a concern that there was not much time to do those mitigations between the point at which UKSV recommendations were received and the decision by the Foreign Office to grant vetting? There really was not much time for mitigations, as well as very little evidence that they were provided.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  I am extremely grateful; the hon. Lady is being very generous with her time. I want to develop the point from a slightly different angle. What we are really interested in are the conclusions of the vetting process, not the material that leads to the conclusions. It is therefore entirely possible that we could give all the reassurances that she and the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) have made clear are important to those who contribute to the vetting process, but also make sure that, in the interests of disclosure on occasions such as this, the House can be clear about the conclusions of the vetting process without being told the raw information on which those conclusions are based.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  I think we may have to wait for the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister to explain the position from the Government’s perspective. I can say only that what was put in front of us did not, I think, include the documents that the police had sought to have withheld. I cannot say that that is the case in every instance, but we do not believe that there has been complete disclosure yet. We think there will be further documents put before us, which the police currently have in their possession, so it may well be that there is further work for the Committee to do. My right hon. Friend will recognise from his long experience that we will apply the same degree of rigour and impartiality to any further documents put before us as to the documents we have already seen.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  I do agree with the point that the hon. Lady makes, and I think that that argument was put very forcefully and eloquently by the hon. Member for Pontypridd, which she may have heard a moment ago. I want to return to the grounds on which the Government are entitled to redact material under a Humble Address motion or similar motions. It seems to me not only that Parliament should have clarity about the grounds on which the Government seek to redact such material but that the proper time to have that clarity is when such a motion is first agreed, not as documents begin to be disclosed in response to it. I want to make a suggestion, and I hope that the Government will see it as a helpful one, because it is genuinely meant as such. I suggest that this House agrees standard rules by which a Government may make a redaction and the reasons for it, and that those should be used in all similar situations in the future so that we have clarity. The Government have relied on a variety of legislative and common practice routes to support their right to redact, or in some cases even to withhold documents altogether, in relation to this Humble Address. I think that the process would benefit from consolidation of those reasons into a single document that the House can then endorse. It would save this argument being rerun, or at least limit it to a discussion of any specific grounds for redaction that the Government seek to rely on beyond the agreed reasons. I will turn to the content of the documents and what they tell us. I have said very little about them so far in order to, I hope, preserve the integrity of the process that the ISC has been conducting at the House’s instruction. There is, of course, lots of interest in the documents—in how, for example, the ambassador to the United States steadfastly refused to stay in his lane as a diplomat and instead offered his advice on almost every aspect of the Government’s activity; in the fact that he was held in such high regard, not to say awe, by so many members of the Government; and in the slapdash approach to secure communications, to which the Government, and perhaps also my Committee, will return. It is important to remember that this whole exercise, as I think the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee said, was supposed to be about interrogating how Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador came to be made. It would be churlish not to accept that Lord Mandelson had successes in the role. That indicates that he had merits as a candidate for the job that the Prime Minister was entitled to consider, but considering someone for a role is very different from appointing them to it—especially someone who had such obvious and well known risks, and especially to an appointment of such evident importance and sensitivity. That is why I find the process of making the appointment so concerning and so surprising. I accept that it is unfashionable or even heretical to say it these days, but I have a soft spot for the Prime Minister. I do not think it is just because I like the idea of lawyers with knighthoods being in charge, though I do; it is really because I am an enthusiast for good government. The question of whether one supports a Government’s policies is one thing, but we should all be in favour of good government none the less. I want to see responsible decision making, considered judgments, a preference for evidence over instinct, and flashy ideas properly tested to ensure that they will actually work. That is good government to me, and I thought that in this Prime Minister’s Administration I would see it, but good government requires that where a sensitive appointment carries considerable risk, extra work is done to understand that risk and mitigate it. These documents do not show that. Peter Mandelson’s letter to the then Foreign Secretary—now Deputy Prime Minister—has become famous for his assurance that the Government would not regret his appointment, and ranks up there with “peace for our time” and Michael Fish’s pre-hurricane weather forecast in the pantheon of poor predictions. But there is something else interesting about it, and that is its date—18 November 2024—which makes it clear that Lord Mandelson was at the very least under serious consideration for the ambassador position in mid-November. The vetting process did not begin until late December, with everyone then being told—this is very clear—that it should be completed in time for Mandelson to begin work in January. There are several mentions in the documents of the urgency of that from officials. We know already that the National Security Adviser considered the process strangely rushed, and in the latest drop of documents, we see that in volume II, part I, page 21 it says: “The SPAD work has shown just how slick this can be when needed.” Page 66 says: “We have had quite a bit of senior interest in the processing of this case (not the details merely that it goes smoothly)”. If officials had been asked to start that work earlier, they could have taken longer over it, and surely more time and consideration would have been beneficial in this complex and controversial case. Indeed, the haste with which things were being done was apparent elsewhere. In another document, an official points out that the Prime Minister had announced his choice for ambassador before agrément had been granted. In other words, the United States had not agreed to accept Lord Mandelson as ambassador at that point. That, the official says, should not have happened. It is, and was, clear to everyone that this was a controversial appointment: perhaps high reward, but definitely high risk. There were substantial reasons to worry about it—we have heard several of them—and almost all of them were very public knowledge. That should have given everyone—perhaps especially the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office as the appointing Department—pause for thought, yet we know from page 106 of part III of this volume that UK Security Vetting informed the FCDO of its recommendation in the last week of January 2025 and the FCDO granted the developed vetting certificate on 29 January 2025. Not much pause for thought there. Worse still, as others have pointed out, we have not seen mitigations—ones that were clearly agreed to be necessary—evidenced anywhere. Good government this was not. It has been said by many on the Government’s behalf that mistakes can be made, and that is of course true. When in opposition, the Prime Minister pointed out more than once that Prime Ministers are accountable for the tone and character of the Governments they lead and for how those Governments transact their business, and he was right. These documents show that in the making of this very important and sensitive decision, there was much wrong with the tone and character of this Government.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  It is a genuine privilege to follow the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones). Knowledgeable and passionate Ministers are a huge asset to any Government, and she is a significant loss to this one. If I may say, the same can be said of the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), who sits next to her. The hon. Member for Pontypridd makes important points about the victims of Epstein, which I will not repeat, and she has added considerably to this debate. I also take the opportunity to join in the tributes that were made earlier to Alan Haselhurst, Madam Deputy Speaker, who occupied your Chair with immense dignity and considerable rigour, but did so with deep warmth and kindness. He will be missed in both Chambers of this place. Turning to the motion, I will say something about the process that has led to the publication of the documents we are now considering, and then something about their contents. On the process, I start by offering thanks to the officials of the Cabinet Office and the staff of the Intelligence and Security Committee. The whole House will now be conscious of the sheer scale of the task that lay before both those groups of people and the immense work that they all had to put in to turn the process around as quickly as they did. The House will also now appreciate that, given their nature, it was inevitable that a large number of those documents raised questions of either national security or international relations. On behalf of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I want to make it very clear, as I have before, first that we are very grateful for the words of the Paymaster General, and indeed the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister on previous occasions, on the work that we have done. Secondly, I want to reassure the House that throughout the process, we were rigorous in our view that Government embarrassment was not sufficient cause for redaction of these documents. I hope the House can now see that that is the case, as there is plenty of Government embarrassment left unredacted. The prejudice that we sought to establish in relation to international relations or national security needed to be real prejudice, and not the vague possibility of that prejudice. That is the way in which we approached the task. I am confident in the redactions that we agreed to make, and indeed in the decisions we took not to support the redactions that we refused to consent to. In the process that we undertook—I have spoken about this before—two issues of process have arisen. The first is the question of who checks proposed redactions for reasons other than national security or international relations. I am very glad that the Government have agreed that my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) should fulfil that role, as he has now done. The second concerns the grounds for redaction beyond the protection of national security or international relations. As many who have heard these conversations before know, I have been and remain critical of the way the Government have maintained the unilateral right to redact for other reasons. I do not propose to go through all those arguments again. I take that position not because I do not think the Government have a good case to do so, but because I think it is wrong for the Government to assume Parliament’s consent to that case.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  The right hon. Lady persuades us that there is a good hypothesis, as she has described, for how this has happened, although we will never know—only the Prime Minister will know. However, does she accept that there is another hypothesis: that the Prime Minister was convinced early that this was the right thing to do, that the system accepted that that was his judgment, and that nobody sought sufficiently strongly to try to persuade him otherwise, until the appointment was finally confirmed?

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  I am happy to give the right hon. Gentleman that clarity. The documents that we received were unredacted documents marked with the proposed redactions the Government sought to make for reasons of protecting national security or international relations. Where we agreed with the Government, we agreed that those redactions should be made; where we disagreed, those redactions were not made. We saw all the documents unredacted, and we decided whether to accept the Government’s proposals for redaction or not. The House made it clear that it wanted the final word on those redactions—yes or no—to be ours as a Committee, and not the Government’s. I hope that is of assistance to the right hon. Gentleman.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  The answer to the hon. Lady’s question is that we will have seen only the documents to which there were proposed redactions for the purposes of either national security or international relations. However, we may well also have seen other proposed redactions to the same documents. The reason that I have raised concerns in the past about the breadth of those proposed redactions for other reasons is that the Committee has seen some of those proposed redactions, but, of course, we have no way of knowing what proportion of such proposed redactions we have seen—if a document does not contain within it redactions that the Government have proposed for either international relations or national security reasons, the document would not have come before us at all.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  We need to be very clear about this: the arguments the Minister is making are right, but as the hon. Lady points out, they are not a response to the arguments we are making. The argument that has been made to him by the Intelligence and Security Committee, as he knows, is that there is no harm to be found in the disclosure of the conclusions of the vetting process. We accept absolutely that the contributing material that led to those conclusions should not be disclosed. I need him to be very clear that it is our view that the conclusions could be disclosed, and there is no harm to be done to national security, which there would be if the contributing material were disclosed, by the disclosure of the conclusions. Will he confirm that?

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 21 May 2026 · Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I want to ask the Secretary of State about the breadth of the Bill. Clause 1 makes it clear that a “steel undertaking” includes those businesses that have the “manufacture or processing” of iron or steel as part of their operations. Is there any lower threshold to that? Is a business that has only 1% of its operations in iron or steel liable to nationalisation under the Bill? Under clause 2, the Secretary of State is entitled to determine the public interest and can nationalise if it would support “the economy of the United Kingdom or any part of the United Kingdom.” I have the same question: is there any lower threshold? Would the interests of one town where a steel facility is located be sufficient to justify the nationalisation of an entire company?

• 21 May 2026 · Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Will the Secretary of State give way?

• 21 May 2026 · Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  The Secretary of State is being generous. I take him at his word as I do not think that he intends to use this legislation otherwise than appropriately. However, there is an important point to be made about the language in the Bill as it stands. As he knows, the public interest test is defined in certain ways in clause 2, which states that the test “is not limited to” the grounds listed, so there could be other grounds on which the public interest might be met. I have already pointed out one aspect in which the public interest test is relatively broad. I invite the Secretary of State to look again at the public interest test to make sure that we do not just rely on his word, which I do, but that we are confident that succeeding Secretaries of State cannot misuse this power to nationalise too broadly.

• 19 May 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and I thank the Minister for what he has said. As you and the House know, the Intelligence and Security Committee has been considering redactions to documents on the grounds that, if unredacted, those documents may prejudice national security or international relations. It has become apparent to us that the Government also intend to redact documents for other reasons not specifically permitted in the Humble Address or, in some cases, to withhold documents altogether. As the Minister says, the Government issued a list of further grounds on which they intended to redact along with the first tranche of documents that they published. Those grounds include email addresses, phone numbers and what is described as personal data. There is no mechanism for the House to confirm that those redactions are limited only to what is necessary, but I want to ask the Minister about material that the Government intend to withhold for yet further reasons, such as commercial confidentiality or to protect the monarch. The Government also intend to withhold some documents related to vetting in their entirety. I should make it clear that my Committee has considerable sympathy with the substantive arguments that the Government may make for withholding information beyond that currently justified in the Humble Address. There are, for example, valid concerns about the disclosure of information given in a vetting process inhibiting future subjects of vetting, or those who are asked about them, from being as open and forthcoming as they need to be for vetting to be effective. However, we cannot accept that the Government are entitled to ignore, or unilaterally alter, the terms of the Humble Address. Does the Minister accept that if the Government want to argue that the Humble Address is too broad as drafted and needs to be refined, they must come to the House and make that argument, and secure the House’s consent to any alteration? Does he further accept that without doing so, when the next set of documents is published with information withheld, the Government will not succeed in persuading the House or the wider world that this matter is closed? Finally, does he accept that if the Government took it upon themselves to redact or withhold information contrary to the terms of the Humble Address by which they agreed to be bound in February, that would be an issue not just of process, but of parliamentary sovereignty?

• 19 May 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  (Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on the Government’s approach to redacting or withholding documents within scope of the Humble Address agreed by the House on 4 February 2026.

• 19 May 2026 · High Speed 2 Reset · Hansard source

  More

  I have to say, I share a good deal of the Secretary of State’s frustration, not least because I was one of those who argued at the time that if the speed of the railway was reduced to roughly what she is proposing, it would open up a number of alternative route options, avoiding the open countryside that the line now cuts across. Can I counter-intuitively ask her to be a little more ambitious, despite everything she has said about high-speed rail? She will recognise that the strategic benefits of high-speed rail, as they were put to this House originally, were about a nationwide network, not simply a line between London and Birmingham. Can she confirm that this Government—and future Governments, hopefully—will seek to expand that network, so that high-speed rail focuses not on going faster, but on going further?

• 18 May 2026 · Youth Justice · Hansard source

  More

  Can I ask the Secretary of State about two things? The first is education, which he has mentioned. It is, of course, important to look at education for young people in a custodial setting, but does he agree that it is also important to consider the link between attendance at education and rehabilitation for those who have received non-custodial disposals, and will he ensure that his proposals make that link clear? Secondly, in relation to advocacy on behalf of young people within the youth justice system, the Secretary of State will recognise that, with a smaller number of young people going through the system, it is more and more difficult to maintain a specialist advocacy profession and to ensure that advocates are properly rewarded for the very specific skills they need to develop. Will he look at the fee structure for advocates and ensure that we continue to encourage the right balance of skills, attention to conferences and that they get to know the client, which is particularly important for young people in the youth justice system?

• 29 Apr 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

  More

  Q7. Many of us across this House worked hard to pass the Online Safety Act 2023, not because we thought it would be the last word on online safety, but because we believed it was an important step forward in making online platforms more accountable for the content on their services and for the algorithms that curate it. Can the Prime Minister reassure us that whatever his Government decide to do to restrict our young people’s access to social media will not be used as cover by social media companies to do less themselves to keep young people safer online?

• 27 Apr 2026 · Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response Update · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Minister for his kind words about the hard work of the Intelligence and Security Committee. He will recognise and want to reflect with the House that we cannot work any faster than the speed at which the documents are given to us by the Government; the last of them, as he said, is being given to us today. The process will not be complete by Prorogation, as perhaps it should have been. I would like to raise two points of concern in what the Minister has said to us this afternoon. The first is about redaction. He has made it clear that the Government intend to redact for reasons beyond the Humble Address exemption related to international relations and national security; he has described that as the names of junior officials, personal information or legally privileged information. On Thursday, I put it to the Leader of the House that the Government document describing their approach to redactions is substantially wider than that. It says: “It may also be necessary for the government to make further redactions in future publications based on other public interest principles, including”— but of course not limited to— “commercially sensitive information.” Will the Minister please, either today or in writing, explain clearly on what grounds the Government intend to redact these documents? If, as I suspect, some of the grounds on which the Government propose to redact are beyond the scope of the Humble Address, will he confirm that the Government must return to this House and seek consent so to do? With your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, my final point is also about redaction. The Minister has said in his statement that the Government will not publish information that undermines or threatens our country’s national security or international relations. As he knows, in accordance with the process agreed, it will be for the Intelligence and Security Committee to determine those questions, not the Government—won’t it?

• 27 Apr 2026 · Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response Update · Hansard source

  More

  Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker. It was about whether the Minister would confirm that it will be the ISC that determines redactions on the basis of international relations and national security.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

  More

  With your indulgence, Mr Speaker, I want to raise three points with the Leader of the House about the operation of the Humble Address agreed by the House on 4 February. I make clear that I do so on behalf of the Intelligence and Security Committee. First, I invite the Leader of the House to confirm that under the terms of the Humble Address, no one within Government has the right to withhold, deny or not disclose the existence of any document within the scope of the Humble Address. Secondly, as the Leader of the House knows, the exemptions set out in the Humble Address that relate to the Intelligence and Security Committee are about redactions that need to be made to protect either national security or international relations. Beyond that, the Government produced a document to go along with the first disclosure of material on 11 March, which set out a number of grounds on which the Government would also seek to redact information. If you will permit me, Mr Speaker, I will quote what they are. The document mentions “Individuals’ email addresses and phone numbers; the identities of junior civil servants; personal data of third parties where this is not in scope of the motion; and legal professional privilege.” It also makes reference to a “small amount of Peter Mandelson’s personal data”, and then says that “It may also be necessary for the government to make further redactions in future publications based on other public interest principles, including commercially sensitive information.” I invite the Leader of the House to confirm that if the Government intend to do so, they need to come to this House to explain what those grounds for redaction will be, because—as I hope he will agree—they are not covered by the terms of the Humble Address as it stands. It is important that the House has the chance to validate the Government’s view that further redactions would be appropriate. My third point is about redactions on grounds other than national security or international relations. As the Leader of the House knows, the Committee I am part of is going through documents now to confirm that the redactions the Government propose to make are appropriate on the grounds of national security or international relations, but no one is doing the same work in relation to redactions that the Government seek to make for other reasons. Should they not be, and should there not be an opportunity for someone in this House to look at the unredacted versions of those documents, to confirm that the redactions the Government are seeking to make are appropriate?

• 20 Apr 2026 · Security Vetting · Hansard source

  More

  The Prime Minister has been very clear about his view of the urgency of his response since he learned of this vetting information, so I want to ask him about the events of last week. He will know that the Intelligence and Security Committee asked for any information relevant to vetting to be supplied to it in the first tranche of information we were to consider. We did not receive anything about vetting at that time. The Prime Minister has now told us that he became aware on Tuesday evening of the information he has set out, but the Intelligence and Security Committee was not told about the existence of that information—information that the Prime Minister must have recognised was within the terms of the Humble Address and would need to be supplied to the ISC. We were not told by his officials about the existence of that information until Thursday, after its existence had been published in The Guardian newspaper. As such, I am bound to ask the Prime Minister this: if that information’s existence had not been disclosed by the press, would we have been told about it? If so, why did the ISC have to learn of its existence from The Guardian and not from the Government?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

  More

  Q2. In January last year, I raised with the Prime Minister the issue of inadequate and inaccessible compensation for those injured by covid vaccinations. The Prime Minister undertook to look into it, along with the Health Secretary, but I am afraid that more than a year later no significant progress has been made. I know that the Prime Minister and the Government recognise the risk that this issue poses to public confidence in mass vaccination—all the more important given the Prime Minister’s opening remarks in this session—and, indeed, the pain it has caused to those who have been injured or lost loved ones for doing only what their Government asked them to do. Will the Prime Minister please re-engage with this issue and ensure that his Government make swift progress in resolving it?

• 10 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill · Hansard source

  More

  The Lord Chancellor has quite properly recognised the Government’s debt of gratitude to Sir Brian Leveson, but will he accept that the Government have been somewhat selective in adopting Sir Brian’s recommendations? He knows that Sir Brian did not recommend that all cases that are triable either way should have the right to elect for jury trial to be removed from them. He also knows, incidentally, that Sir Brian did not propose an increase in magistrates’ sentencing powers to up to two years; he suggested that it remain at 12 months. What the Lord Chancellor has not done is adopt some of Sir Brian’s recommendations in relation to encouraging early guilty pleas, which would have a significant impact on the backlog. Why have the Government selected for priority purposes the recommendations that would have an impact on the right of jury trial, and not some other recommendations that would have a similar effect on the backlog?