Olly Robbins says he faced ‘constant pressure’ to get Mandelson in post

The sacked senior civil servant Oliver Robbins has said he was subject to “constant pressure” when he arrived in the Foreign Office to get Peter Mandelson in post as soon as possible.

He said the Cabinet Office urged the Foreign Office to allow Mandelson’s appointment as the UK’s ambassador to the US without the usual vetting process but the Foreign Office pushed back and the vetting eventually went ahead.

The former permanent secretary, who was sacked by Keir Starmer last week after the Guardian revealed he had overturned a ruling from UK Security Vetting, confirmed to parliament’s foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday that he had not told anybody in No 10 about the initial decision.

Starmer had appointed Mandelson before Robbins took up his role as Foreign Office chief, and also before security vetting had taken place, with senior officials telling the Guardian it was clear to them that No 10 wanted Mandelson in Washington whatever the risk.

In testimony that could be key to Starmer’s survival as prime minister, Robbins revealed that prior to his own appointment there had been a “live debate” about whether Mandelson should have to undergo any vetting before he was appointed. He said his predecessor, Philip Barton, had to be “very firm in person” for it to take place.

He told the committee that Downing Street took a “dismissive” attitude to vetting and Mandelson was given access to the Foreign Office building, low-classification IT and to “higher-classification briefings” before he was granted security clearance.

Robbins told MPs: “I walked into a situation in which there was already a very, very strong expectation. And you have seen the papers released already under the humble address that’s coming from Number 10 that he needed to be in post and in America as quickly as humanly possible. The very first formal communication of this to my predecessor from Number 10 private office being that they wanted all this done at pace and Mandelson in post before inauguration.”

Asked who in No 10 had applied pressure, he said it was mainly the prime minister’s private office, which is staffed by civil servants. But he added: “I think that the private office would only have been [putting on] this pressure themselves if they were under pressure.”

In a letter to the committee before testifying, Robbins
said he had been briefed orally in January – understood to be by Ian Collard, the department’s chief property and security officer – and that no documents were presented to him.

He said UKSV had considered Mandelson a “borderline” case and was leaning towards recommending that clearance be denied.