‘Unacceptable’ to overrule Mandelson vetting recommendation – Jones

It is “beyond unacceptable” that the Foreign Office was able to overrule a security vetting process to clear Lord Peter Mandelson to become UK ambassador to the US and rules have been changed to prevent it happening, Darren Jones said.

The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister said Sir Keir Starmer was “furious” at the situation but denied the premier had misled Parliament over the Mandelson scandal.

The Foreign Office’s top civil servant Sir Olly Robbins was effectively sacked after the revelation that officials took the rare step of overruling the recommendation from UK Security Vetting.

Mr Jones told LBC Radio: “Given the nature of the problem here, not just in terms of the appointment, but the position that it has put the Prime Minister and Cabinet ministers in as a consequence of the decision to overrule the recommendation of UK Security Vetting, and the fact that the system even allowed for that to happen in the first place, it’s of a scale of a problem that we’ve not experienced in government before.

“It is beyond unacceptable.”

Mr Jones said he had suspended the ability of the Foreign Office and a “small number” of other organisations to overrule recommendations by UK Security Vetting.