Mandelson-Epstein latest: Peer to step down from House of Lords after ‘shocking’ email allegations

Lord Mandelson will formally retire from the House of Lords tomorrow, the newly installed Lord Speaker Lord Forsyth of Drumlean said.

He told the upper chamber: "Given the public interest and for the convenience of the House, I've decided to inform the House that the clerk of the Parliaments has today received notification from Lord Mandelson of his intention to retire from the House, effective from February 4.

"I will formally notify this to the house tomorrow in the usual way."

Lord Mandelson’s announcement he is standing down from the House of Lords comes after the PM left him little choice.

Sir Keir Starmer told his cabinet this morning he had ordered officials to draw up legislation designed to remove his peerage.

The move could have led to a new law being passed within weeks to remove the one-time Labour grandee, who resigned from the party on Sunday, from Parliament's upper chamber.

Instead, Lord Mandelson has decided to go under his own steam.

Breaking news: Lord Mandelson is to step down from the House of Lords, it has been announced by the Lord Speaker.

Analysis by Kate Devlin, Whitehall Editor:

It is not often that the government calls in the police. Still less often that the matter involves a former senior cabinet minister.

Yet that is exactly what has happened today, and with it Keir Starmer has significantly escalated the UK’s response to the Mandelson-Epstein scandal.

In an extraordinary denunciation, the prime minister also said his former ambassador to Washington had let his country down and indicated a plan of action to have him removed from the House of Lords.

Lord Mandelson has given an interview in which he appeared to suggest he still had much to contribute to British public life. But it looks like there is no chance of that on Sir Keir's watch.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting says Lord Mandelson's actions were a "betrayal on so many levels" - to Epstein's victims, through continued association with him after his 2008 conviction for prostituting a minor, to the current Prime Minister and to Gordon Brown.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live the prime minister had ordered an investigation into what was known and why "only now do we know the full extent of what Peter Mandelson was up to".

Former deputy Labour leader Baroness Harman told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that she had long viewed Lord Mandelson as "untrustworthy" but "even I have been shocked at the degree of his wrongdoing".

A journalist has described Peter Mandelson as “dismissive rather than charming“, with this going “to the heart of Westminster's problem”.

Sky News’ lead politics presenter Sophy Ridge said in a post on X: “People who look at Westminster, in the same way as they might look at Washington, and think, this is a closed group of elites, who all know each other, who go to the same parties, and share the same in jokes – well, to a large extent, they are right.”

She continued: “Status is everything... And Peter Mandelson is the embodiment of that. Charming, well-connected, gossipy. In the inner circle.

“If we're honest with ourselves, that's the reason he's been allowed to fail and then be rehabilitated so many times. It's the reason he was given the best job in politics, US Ambassador, despite being friends with a paedophile. And it's the reason he's had a softer landing than many others would have in his position.”

Whitehall editor Kate Devlin reports:

The prime minister has ordered an investigation into Lord Mandelson’s contacts with Jeffrey Epstein while in government.

The cabinet office has also referred assessments of the original emails to the Metropolitan Police today.

It is understood this was at the government’s instigation and had not been requested by police. 

The Met Police already said on Monday that they were reviewing reports into alleged misconduct in a public office after the peer was accused of leaking sensitive information to  Epstein while he was a cabinet minister in Gordon Brown’s government.

Whitehall editor Kate Devlin reports:

Sir Keir Starmer opened cabinet today by saying he was “appalled” at the emails that have emerged between Lord Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein.

He told his ministers that the alleged passing on of government information was  “disgraceful”.

He also admitted there could be more to come in the scandal.

And he said that for the public to see a politician say they cannot recall significant sums of money was “gobsmacking”.

The prime minister has also asked officials to draft legislation to kick him out of the House of Lords.

He said Lord Mandelson had “let his country down” and his actions risked undermining voters’ faith in politics.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor appeared to congratulate Jeffrey Epstein about the conclusion of his house arrest, according to newly-released documents.

The US Justice Department on Friday published the third tranche of millions of documents related to the late convicted sex offender Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 as he awaited a trial on sex trafficking charges.

The latest documents appear to include emails between Andrew and Epstein from 2010 - two years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution. Epstein served 13 months in jail before being released on probation under house arrest until summer 2010.

An exchange between Epstein and an email account named “The Duke”, from which messages were signed “HRH The Duke of York KG”, dated late July 2010 show the two appearing to make plans to meet.

On 24 July 2010, Epstein emailed to say “I will be in Paris starting tomorrow.”

That same day, ‘The Duke” replied: “Congratulations! [Redacted] told me you were allowed out from yesterday. How long in Paris for? I am back in London from 16th. A”.

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