UK agriculture deal with EU will not remove all red tape, peers told

A new agriculture agreement with the EU will not wipe out all Brexit paperwork but might pave the way for sales of Scottish langoustines and oysters, the House of Lords has heard.The UK and EU are close to finalising a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement to reduce Brexit trade barriers, and while it will have “modest” impact on the UK economy the agreement will be significant, peers on the European affairs committee were told on Tuesday.It would spell the end of physical checks on farm produce and the end of the need for veterinary certificates, which cost £200 each.It could also remove the need to label food as “Not for EU”, which has been “a significant problem” for wholesalers and distributors, said William Bain, head of trade policy at the British Chambers of Commerce.Bain, who is Scottish, said it could reopen the door for exports of Scottish langoustines and molluscs

Olly Robbins: I was asked to find job for Starmer aide and not tell David Lammy

Downing Street pushed the Foreign Office to find a diplomatic role for Keir Starmer’s communications chief over the head of the then foreign secretary, the former head of the department has revealed.Testifying to MPs at parliament’s foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday, Olly Robbins said he had several conversations with No 10 about finding a role for Matthew Doyle, who was later suspended as a Labour peer after it emerged he had campaigned for a friend charged with possessing indecent images of children.Robbins said he had been asked not to mention the idea to David Lammy, who was foreign secretary at the time.Robbins described the conversations as part of more general pressure from people at the top of the government to place senior political figures in senior diplomatic posts. He made the revelation while testifying to the committee about the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Washington ambassador

Starmer still faces more questions than answers after Olly Robbins’ quietly damning defence | John Crace

Well, what would you do? You’re a top civil servant with more than 25 years of government service. You’ve worked for Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May. You went through Brexit hell as a lead negotiator. You were sacked by Boris Johnson and were then brought back by Keir Starmer.You land a plum job as permanent undersecretary in the Foreign Office and do your boss a favour by appointing his man as ambassador to the US

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 started working at 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.In an extraordinary development, Robbins, who was sacked by Keir Starmer last week after the Guardian disclosed he had overturned a recommendation from UK Security Vetting (UKSV) to deny clearance for Mandelson, suggested he had done so without knowing the full extent of national security concerns over the Labour peer.The former permanent secretary made his decision to give clearance without seeing the UKSV form – which said there was a “high” overall concern and concluded “clearance denied” – or even knowing the details.Robbins also confirmed the Guardian’s story that senior government officials had considered whether to withhold from parliament sensitive documents about the vetting process, a story which was denied last week by the prime minister’s chief secretary, Darren Jones

Robbins’ account raises questions over whether he was misled on Mandelson vetting

An account of Peter Mandelson’s vetting process given by the former top civil servant Sir Olly Robbins has raised new questions about whether Robbins was misled about the findings of the agency responsible for vetting.Robbins, who was sacked from his role of permanent secretary at the Foreign Office last week after revelations in the Guardian, gave testimony about the process to a select committee.Robbins told MPs that he did not see the vetting file produced by United Kingdom Security Vetting (UKSV), which he described as existing in a “hermetically sealed box”.However, he said he was briefed on the risks it highlighted at a meeting on 29 January 2025 with a top Foreign Office security official. That was the day after UKSV had submitted its recommendation

Robbins v Starmer: the key points they disagree on over Mandelson vetting

In the last 24 hours, the two men at the heart of the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal have given their version of events: Keir Starmer, the prime minister, and Olly Robbins, the man he sacked as the head civil servant at the Foreign Office.Robbins’ testimony to the foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday completes much of the picture as to why Mandelson was given security clearance against the advice of vetting officials.But there are several points on which Starmer and Robbins disagree. Here are some of them.Robbins detailed at length on Tuesday the pressure he and his predecessor, Philip Barton, came under to appoint Mandelson quickly, saying it helped to explain why he felt he needed to overrule vetting officials’ recommendation to deny the Labour peer security clearance

Ed Miliband says he and Lammy feared Mandelson appointment could ‘blow up’

Ed Miliband and David Lammy discussed concerns that the appointment of Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to Washington could “blow up”, the energy secretary has revealed.Miliband said he spoke to Lammy, who was foreign secretary at the time Mandelson was given the Washington post, and both expressed reservations.Mandelson was sacked after nine months in the job after new disclosures about his relationship with the late financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.The Guardian revealed last week that Mandelson had failed his initial security vetting, which had then been overruled by the Foreign Office, leading to the sacking of the department’s permanent secretary, Oliver Robbins.Robbins will give evidence to a select committee of MPs on Tuesday morning

Will Olly Robbins’ testimony jeopardise Keir Starmer’s defence?

On Monday, Keir Starmer testified in front of the Commons about what he knew about the vetting process behind Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to Washington.On Tuesday, Olly Robbins – whom Starmer sacked as head of the Foreign Office last week – will give his side of the story under questioning by MPs on the foreign affairs select committee.Robbins is said by friends to be upset by the claims ministers are making. But what are the questions he will be asked, and what might they mean for the prime minister’s future?Robbins is very unlikely to give details of the vetting process or what exactly officials discovered, given this is supposed to be strictly confidential. But MPs are likely to press him on whether anything new was found during the vetting process or whether it only flagged previously known concerns

Peter Mandelson: a timeline of his appointment as UK ambassador to US

In a pivotal Commons statement to MPs on Monday, Keir Starmer laid out the most detailed timeline of Peter Mandelson’s appointment as the UK ambassador to the US, the vetting process that ended with the Foreign Office overruling the UK Security Vetting (UKSV) and what he said were chances to tell him that civil servants had failed to take.Cabinet Office conducts a due diligence exercise on how suitable Mandelson was for the role. Starmer told the Commons his No 10 staff put questions to Mandelson on the department’s behalf.Mandelson responded to questions from the Cabinet Office’s due diligence exercise, posed to him by Downing Street staff, Starmer told MPs in the Commons.“I made the decision to appoint him,” Starmer told MPs, after receiving final advice on the due diligence process on 11 December 2024