Top Cabinet Office official to give evidence to MPs about Peter Mandelson’s vetting – UK politics live

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Good morning. As Kiran Stacey, Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot report in the Guardian’s splash, “Keir Starmer is looking increasingly isolated over his handling of the Peter Mandelson scandal with divisions emerging in cabinet over his decision to sack the Foreign Office civil servant Olly Robbins.”

Guardian splash Photograph: Guardian

And this morning the saga continues, with Cat Little, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, giving evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee about the Peter Mandelson vetting controversy.

The Little hearing is unlikely to be as revelatory as the Olly Robbins session on Tuesday. But Little is a key figure in this story, for two reasons. First, as head of the Cabinet Office, she is in charge of collecting all the documents relating to Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US, and Mandelson’s communications with ministers and officials, which have to be published as a result of the humble address passed by parliament. It was in this capacity that she discovered the UK Security Vetting (UKSV) document that revealed that the UKSV officials who interviewed Mandelson for his developed vetting (DV) advised that he should not get clearance. At a meeting on Tuesday last week she reported this bombshell news to the PM. Here is the extract from the minute of that meeting released by No 10.

double quotation markCat set out that the vetting process involved UKSV in the Cabinet Office producing a vetting file which included a recommendation on whether DV should be granted, which was then passed to the sponsor department, in this case FCDO. As part of the humble address process, that file had been shared with Cat. On reviewing the file she had therefore learned that the recommendation from the vetting officer had been that DV should not be granted to Peter Mandelson. There is some discretion for departments to proceed with clearance and the FCDO had exercised it in this case, granting Mandelson vetting clearance. Cat had not seen the audit trail for this decision so we did not yet know on what basis the decision had been taken, contrary to the recommendation.

Second, UKSV is part of the Cabinet Office, which means she has oversight that entire process.

After Keir Starmer learned about this information, and after it was made public by a Guardian report, he sacked Olly Robbins, the Foreign Office permanent secretary, on the grounds that he should have followed the UKSV advice in relation to Mandelson – or at least flagged up these concerns to No 10. As Robbins explained to the committee on Tuesday, he insists that UKSV can only make a recommendation, that the final decision was one for the Foreign Office and its own security team, and that he was fully entitled to conclude that the risks flagged up by UKSV could be managed.

Little may shed some light on this dispute, although we know whose side she will take. Unlike Robbins, she is still a serving civil servant; she works for the PM. It will be surprising if she says anything that will cause him significant embarrassment.

But these hearings are also interesting for what they tell us about the workings of the British state. The Cabinet Office is at the centre of the UK’s security network, and the DV process is one of the most secretive parts of this system. It will be odd if we don’t learn something.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Cat Little, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, gives evidence to the foreign affairs committee.

9.30am: The ONS publishes crime figures for England and Wales

Morning: Keir Starmer is on a St George’s Day-related visit in the north-east.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

Afternoon: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in Pembrokeshire, with the Welsh Tory leader, Darren Millar.

Afternoon: Starmer attends a military planning meeting at Northwood headquarters as part of strait of Hormuz coalition process

4.30pm: Lord Hermer, the attorney general, speaks at an Oxford University event alongside the Council of Europe secretary general, Alain Berset.

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