Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

That’s one out of the left-field. Robbins has just claimed that in March 2025 he was asked by No 10 to “potentially” find a job as an ambassador for Matthew Doyle.

At the time Doyle was the prime minister’s director of communications.

He was subsequently given a peerage, an appointment which itself descended into scandal over Doyle’s relationship with a convicted sex offender.

This is going to go down very badly with Labour MPs.

Doyle, like Mandelson, has a long history has an influential figure on the right of the Labour Party. He first worked in government under Tony Blair.

Note, too, that Robbins claims to have been told by No 10 not to discuss the prospect of a diplomatic appointment for Doyle with David Lammy, then the foreign secretary.

Jack Fenwick
Political correspondent

We're getting more detail than ever about the decision to give Mandelson developed vetting.

Last week the government published a template of the form, external that UK Security Vetting (UKSV) fill out when deciding whether to recommend giving someone clearance.

That form includes three boxes - green, amber and red - which indicate the vetting team’s recommendation.

We are told that for Mandelson's form, the vetting team ticked the red box - indicating an explicit recommendation not to approve vetting.

But Robbins, who is still giving evidence, says he was never given that information.

"[I do] not recall the way in which the UKSV findings were presented to me as being that definitive", he says, adding that he was instead told "that it was borderline and they were leaning towards recommending against".

This will raise questions about whether Robbins - the most senior civil servant at the Foreign Office at the time - was given the correct information by other officials in his department, and whether the prime minister knew what Robbins had or hadn’t seen when he decided to sack him.

Image source, UK Government

Labour MP Dan Carden then asks what would the impact have been if Mandelson's clearance had been denied.

"I think it would have been very difficult indeed," Robbins answers adding it could have been difficult for the foreign secretary and the prime minister.

Carden points to Starmer saying the Foreign Office granted Mandelson clearance against the specific recommendation.

He asks Robbins if he believes the PM is misunderstanding this process, to which the ex-civil servant says he can only describe the process as he understands it.

Carden then asks if the prime minister is right to have expected to be provided with more information on the vetting process.

In response, Robbins says this is a "dangerous misunderstanding of the necessity of confidentiality of the process".

Conservative MP John Whittingdale takes the next set of questions.

Whittingdale asks whether retracting the appointment could have damaged US relations. In response, Robbins says that it could have "caused quite an issue in the relationship".

Liberal Democrat MP Edward Morello then asks if it was Robbins' judgement that the mitigations for the concerns raised through the vetting process were satisfactory.

He says he trusted the judgement of the recommendations made to him, saying they are "very clever people" and their decisions were independent of the pressure he was under.

Chris Mason
Political editor

Image source, Reuters

The opening 40 minutes or so of this paints a picture of Downing Street being desperate to get Lord Mandelson to Washington as soon as possible for his role as US ambassador.

For all the concern expressed by Downing Street in recent days about vetting, Robbins describes a government keen to crack on quickly, and make sure the new ambassador was in place by the time of Donald Trump’s inauguration for his second term.

There was a very strong expectation from No 10 that he needed to be in post and in America as quickly as humanly possible, Robbins tells MPs.

He claims Downing Street was constantly pushing for updates on the vetting and “never [had] an interest in whether, only an interest in when” the vetting would be signed off.

Jack Fenwick
Political correspondent

Image source, Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images

We've reached the part of Robbins' testimony on which he and the prime minister disagree most vehemently.

He says he would "absolutely not" have considered telling anyone in No 10 about the vetting team's concerns surrounding Peter Mandelson.

Robbins says that as he understands the system, any decision-making on vetting "must remain confidential".

He's pushed quite hard by the committee chair Emily Thornberry - who has repeatedly suggested that he could have told someone that there were issues raised - even if he didn't divulge any further details.

But Robbins says that would have amounted to him "trying to shift responsibility on to others".

We know that No 10 takes a very different view here.

They’ve made it clear in recent days that they believe Robbins should have informed them about the security concerns.

In the end, this difference of opinion about how the system should have worked in the reason Robbins was sacked.

Robbins says his department followed the process "rigorously" - despite some individuals in No 10 believing it was not a process that ever needed to be followed.

He also says he was "given a set of serious reflections on the risks raised by a bunch of professionals," and he "felt the Foreign Office could manage them well".

Thornberry asks whether Robbins spoke to his line manager, Chris Wormald, about the pressures being put on his department of Mandelson's case.

Robbins says he did not feel he had the need to make a complaint to his line manager as he felt the department had handled the case well despite the pressure.

Image source, UK Parliament

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

There is quite an important nuance to Sir Olly Robbins’s argument.

He is describing an atmosphere where No 10 expected to Lord Mandelson to receive clearance and where officials from the centre of government were putting the Foreign Office under pressure to expedite that clearance.

However, he is adamant that that atmosphere is not why Mandelson was granted clearance.

Robbins still believes, evidently, that he and the Foreign Office made the correct decision given the information he received and the mitigations he put in place.

The prime minister’s position, meanwhile, is the exact opposite.

His argument is that the Foreign Office was not under pressure, but nevertheless made the wrong decision.

Robbins declines to tell the committee whether there was anything flagged in the developed vetting that was not already in the public realm.

Amid pressing from Thornberry, he says it's important that vetting candidates know the government respects the confidence of the process, and answering that would "lead to a storm of questions".

• We're still hearing from Emily Thornberry, the chair of the Foreign Office Select Committee, who is questioning the former chief civil servant of the Foreign Office about Peter Mandelson's appointment as US ambassador.

Thornberry says she doesn't understand why Robbins does not know the contents of the UK Security Vetting (UKSV) guidance and its concerns about Mandelson - you can't consider mitigation if you don't know what the problems are, she says.

The risks were explained, but I've not seen the "underlying documentation", he says.

"I have never seen a UKSV document," he says, adding that for anybody to be briefed on information or findings of a UKSV process is for "wholly exceptional circumstances".

"This is a wholly exceptional circumstance, surely?"

"No," Robbins replies.

Robbins confirms he was presented with the findings of the UKSV report, but did not read them himself. He says the findings were explained to him but he was not shown any documents.

He tells the committee the outcome of the vetting process is decided by the Foreign Office, based on UKSV findings and their own assessment of the risk.

Robbins says he was briefed that UKSV considered Mandelson a "borderline case" and were "leaning towards" recommending that clearance be denied. But he says the Foreign Office decided that the risks identified could be "managed or mitigated".

Robbins adds that the risks "did not relate" to Mandelson's relationship with Epstein.

Image source, UK Parliament

Jack Fenwick
Political correspondent

The Foreign Affairs Committee has just published a letter from Sir Olly Robbins which contains some key information.

Robbins says he never saw the explicit recommendation document from the vetting team not to grant Mandelson developed vetting.

Instead he says he was briefed in person on the vetting team’s work and was told they were “leaning towards recommending that clearance be denied”.

He claims he was told that Mandelson’s case was “borderline”, that the Foreign Office believed those risks could be “managed and mitigated” and that the concerns were not about Mandelson’s links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Robbins also says that the vetting team acknowledged that the Foreign Office “may wish to grant clearance, with appropriate risk management”.

Thornberry presses Robbins, asking him who the source was of the pressure put on his office for Mandelson's appointment.

Robbins responds by saying he was not willing to "scapegoat" other civil servants, but maintains the "vector" of pressure he was most conscious of was the private office of No 10.

The chair then says that ex-Number 10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney was a "protégé" of Mandelson and that he was "keen" on him getting the job, but Robbins repeats that he is unaware of the source of the pressure.

He adds that there was no direct communication between him and No 10 at this time and he is aware that his phone will be investigated as part of the ongoing process.

Thornberry asks Robbins who the discussions surrounding Mandelson were with in the Cabinet Office.

Robbins says that he does not know, as it happened before his arrival - but that the position taken by the Cabinet Office was that "Mandelson's status meant that vetting might be unnecessary".

Thornberry then asks whether any pressure was put on him. Robbins says his office was under "constant pressure" and there was an "atmosphere of constant chasing".

He says there was never any interest in "whether" Mandelson was appointed, "but only an interest in when".

Robbins says predecessor had to be firm in arguing Mandelson should be vettedpublished at 09:21 BST

09:21 BST

Jack Fenwick
Political correspondent

A really key exchange very early on in this session.

Olly Robbins claims that the Cabinet Office argued that there was no need to put Lord Mandelson through vetting.

He says "there was a debate" between the Cabinet Office and the Foreign Office about whether it was needed.

Robbins wasn't the head of the Foreign Office at that point and he says "I understand my predecessor had to be very firm" in arguing that Mandelson should be vetted.

Asked if it was politicians or officials inside the Cabinet Office arguing against the need for vetting, he says he thinks the conversations were official-level, but he's not completely sure.

If it does indeed turn out that the Cabinet Office - the department in which the Prime Minister works - didn't want Mandelson to be vetted - that would be politically very significant.

Thornberry interjects Robbins to ask what kind of additional pressures he was put under in relation to the vetting?

"I didn't think it was a given that he would be vetted," Robbins replies. "There is no stipulation from No 10 that he should be vetted.

"The announcement put out on 20 December says he will be out there in the New Year.

"There was then a debate between cabinet office and Foreign Office how he is sent out with the appropriate clearance and that took several days."

Image source, UK Parliament

Robbins goes on to say there was a "generally dismissive attitude" towards Mandelson's vetting clearance, with a focus on getting him out to Washington "quickly".

He adds that his department still completed the relevant vetting to the "normal high standard".

Robbins starts by thanking the committee for the opportunity to talk, and by saying that it has been a "difficult time" for him.

He then says he has three important framing points to make. He begins by saying that when he began his position in the Foreign Office, he wasn't walking into a "vacuum".

He says Starmer had already announced Mandelson as his nominee, the King had been informed, and a due diligence report was already being undertaken by the Cabinet Office.

He says Mandelson already had access to the building and to some IT classifications.

Robbins says there was "already a very very strong expectation" from No 10 that Mandelson "needed to be in post and in America as quickly as possible".

A reminder: Olly Robbins began the Foreign Office job in January 2025, Mandelson had been publicly announced as the choice for US ambassador in December 2024

"It is important we hear from you," chair of the committee and Labour MP Emily Thornberry says, as she adds that it must be a difficult time for Olly Robbins.

"I think it is important we get the whole truth today," Thornberry continues.

She then asks Robbins to walk through what the situation was like while he was in the Foreign Office regarding Lord Mandelson.

Image source, UK Parliament

Olly Robbins has just started to speak to MPs on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in the House of Commons.

You can watch live at the top of this page, and we will bring you all the key developments as the they happen.