Starmer: Mandelson ‘should not be a member of the House of Lords’

Sir Keir Starmer believes Lord Mandelson should no longer sit in Parliament following further revelations about the peer’s links to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Downing Street said Sir Keir believed the former ambassador to the US “should not be a member of the House of Lords or use the title”, but the Prime Minister does not have the power to strip him of his peerage.

The country’s top civil servant has also been tasked with urgently reviewing information on links between Lord Mandelson and Epstein while he was a Government minister.

In an email exchange from 2009, Lord Mandelson, then the business secretary, appeared to tell Epstein he would lobby ministers over a tax on bankers’ bonuses.

The emails released by the US Department of Justice also show Epstein was sent internal discussions from the heart of the UK Government in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

Bank statements from 2003 and 2004 appeared to show he received payments totalling 75,000 US dollars (£54,735) from the financier.

Epstein is also said to have paid for an osteopathy course for Lord Mandelson’s husband.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “The Prime Minister believes that Peter Mandelson should not be a member of the House of Lords or use the title. However, the Prime Minister does not have the power to remove it.”

Sir Keir urged the Lords to work with the Government to modernise disciplinary procedures to make it easier to remove disgraced peers.

Under the current arrangements, a new law would be required to remove a peerage, something that last happened more than 100 years ago to deal with members of the nobility who sided with the Germans in the First World War.

There is no precedent for using a new law to remove a specific person.

Lord Mandelson, who is on a leave of absence from the upper chamber, could resign voluntarily.

Another potential route could be the Lords Conduct Committee examining his case.

The spokesman added: “Clearly, we are looking at Lords reform in the round and that includes strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced peers can be removed.”

New information 

Downing Street said the Prime Minister has also asked Cabinet Secretary Sir Chris Wormald to review “all available information regarding Peter Mandelson’s contacts with Jeffrey Epstein during his period as a government minister”.

Asked what prompted the Prime Minister’s action, the spokesman said it was “a response to the totality of the new information over the weekend” since the release of the latest Epstein papers.

“I’m not talking about specific pieces of material that emerged, but the Prime Minister has asked for an urgent review, and that’s why the Cabinet Secretary has been asked to look at all available information regarding Mandelson’s contacts with Epstein during his period as a government minister.”

Disciplinary action

Lord Mandelson resigned his Labour membership late on Sunday night and the party has said he was facing disciplinary action.

While business secretary, email exchanges from December 2009 suggest Lord Mandelson was lobbying to change a tax on bankers’ bonuses, with encouragement from Epstein.

The emails came at the time the so-called “super tax” was being introduced by then-chancellor Alistair Darling, to clamp down on bank profits being used to pay large bonuses for bankers in the wake of the financial crisis.

An email dated December 15 2009, which appears to be from Epstein, reads: “Any real chance of making the tax only on the cash portion of the bankers bonus.”

The reply, apparently from Lord Mandelson, said he was “trying hard to amend”, adding: “Treasury digging in but I am on case.”

Two days later, an email discussion indicates Lord Mandelson encouraged JP Morgan’s boss Jamie Dimon to call Mr Darling and “mildly threaten” him.

In an email to Lord Mandelson, Epstein wrote “should Jamie call Darling one more time” with an apparent reply – with the sender’s email redacted – saying: “Yes and mildly threaten.”

Policy measures

Emails show internal discussions from the heart of Gordon Brown’s government were passed to Epstein in 2009.

One was an analysis of business lending in August 2009 drawn up by government minister Baroness Vadera.

The sender of the email to Epstein has been redacted, but Lord Mandelson was involved in the government email thread.

In an earlier email, Lord Mandelson wrote to Epstein in June 2009, describing an “interesting note that’s gone to the PM”, forwarding an assessment by Mr Brown’s adviser Nick Butler of business confidence and potential policy measures including an “asset sales plan”.

Epstein responded by asking “what salable (sic) assets”, with a reply from a redacted email address saying “land, property I guess”.

‘Shocking’

Mr Brown said he had asked the Cabinet Secretary to examine communication about the sale of assets between Lord Mandelson and Mr Epstein in September last year but was told “no departmental record could be found”.

The former prime minister said: “Given the shocking new information that has come to light in the latest tranche of Epstein papers, including information about the transfer to Mr Epstein of at least one highly sensitive government document as well as other highly confidential information, I have now written to ask for a wider and more intensive enquiry to take place into the wholly unacceptable disclosure of government papers and information during the period when the country was battling the global financial crisis.”

On Sunday night, Lord Mandelson wrote to the general secretary of the Labour Party to say he was resigning his party membership.

In his letter, he said: “Allegations which I believe to be false that he made financial payments to me 20 years ago, and of which I have no record or recollection, need investigating by me.

“While doing this I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour Party and I am therefore stepping down from membership of the party.”

Guilty

Lord Mandelson was sacked as the ambassador to Washington last year after revelations of his continued contact with Epstein following Epstein’s guilty plea in 2008 to soliciting prostitution and soliciting a minor.

In his letter, he added that he wanted to “repeat my apology to the women and girls whose voices should have been heard long before now”.

A party spokesman said: “It is right that Peter Mandelson is no longer a member of the Labour Party. Disciplinary action was under way prior to his resignation.

“Jeffrey Epstein’s heinous crimes destroyed the lives of so many women and girls, and our thoughts remain with his victims.”

Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey said Lord Mandelson should face a police investigation.

He said: “The Epstein files suggest Peter Mandelson leaked sensitive government information to a convicted sex offender while serving as a minister, and even suggested a US bank should threaten the government to lower its tax bill.

“These allegations are incredibly serious, it is now only right that the police investigate Peter Mandelson for potential misconduct in public office.”