Sir Olly Robbins will be grilled by the Foreign Affairs Committee over why the ex-US ambassador Peter Mandelson received the clearance, despite vetting concerns
The chief Foreign Office official sacked over the decision to grant Peter Mandelson security clearance is expected to face questions from MPs on Tuesday.
Sir Olly Robbins will be grilled by the Foreign Affairs Committee over why the ex-US ambassador received the clearance, despite vetting concerns.
Sir Olly was the top civil servant at the Foreign Office when the decision was made to overrule advice from UK Security Vetting so he could take the plum job.
READ MORE: Foreign Office chief Olly Robbins SACKED by Keir Starmer over Mandelson vetting scandalREAD MORE: Starmer orders Foreign Office to explain after overruling Mandelson vetting
No10 has insisted that Keir Starmer was not informed that the Labour grandee was initially denied clearance. The PM ordered an urgent probe into why Lord Mandelson’s vetting was approved as he faced questions over whether he misled MPs and Parliament when he said the rules had been followed. The planned appearance before MPs will be just a day after the PM is due to appear in the Commons to answer questions about the row.
It comes as a former Whitehall mandarin claimed Sir Olly was “thrown under the bus” in the sacking. Speaking to the BBC, Lord Simon McDonald, ex-permanent secretary in the Foreign Office, said: “This story broke on Thursday morning in a piece in The Guardian – within the news cycle Olly Robbins had been required to resign. This shows to me that Number 10 wanted a scalp and they wanted it quickly and I cannot see that there was any process, any fairness, any giving him the chance to set out his case, and that feels to me wrong.”
Lord McDonald took issue with the word “failed” being used to describe the vetting process result because “it is a very black and white word”. He said: “These things tend to be a bit murkier than that. I mean security vetting will have incomplete information, they will be unhappy about one or two details, they’ll want mitigations to be put in place.”
Mr Starmer has been under intense pressure for months over his decision to name Lord Mandelson as the UK’s man in Washington last year. The controversial former Labour grandee, who served under Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, was charged with helping the PM navigate his relationship with US President Donald Trump. But only seven months later he was sacked when new emails came to light revealing the depth of his relationship with Epstein.