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Labour MPs have warned they will vote down a government amendment to limit the disclosures about Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador, with government sources saying they may be forced to change their own amendment.
The former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and the chair of the Treasury select committee, Meg Hillier, have publicly asked the government to allow the intelligence and security committee to review the documents before public disclosure.
MPs said they believed that anger was so vast among the parliamentary party that it posed a significant threat to Starmer’s premiership. “This is Boris and Chris Pincher on steroids,” one senior Labour figure said, referring to the scandal that brought down Boris Johnson.
The Conservatives have forced a vote on the release of the documents, and the government has said it will release the vetting process for Mandelson’s appointment, which they claim will show he lied about his relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffery Epstein.
But the government’s amendment would mean the cabinet secretary could refuse to disclose documents that prejudiced national security or international relations – an exemption that many MPs have told the Guardian they believe is too broad.
Instead Rayner and Hillier have said the government should allow the select committee to have oversight over what is disclosed.
Questioned repeatedly at prime minister’s questions, Starmer said Mandelson had “betrayed our country” in his dealings with the convicted child sex offender. The Metropolitan police have opened an investigation into whether there had been misconduct in a public office over sensitive government documents which appeared to have been forwarded from Mandelson to Epstein.
“He lied repeatedly to my team, when asked about his relationship with Epstein before and during his tenure as ambassador,” the prime minister said. “I regret appointing him. If I knew then what I know now, he would never been anywhere near government.
“I want to make sure this house sees the full documentation, so it will see for itself the extent to which, time and time again, Mandelson completely misrepresented the extent of his relationship with Epstein, and lied throughout the process, including in response to the due diligence,” Starmer said.
In the Conservative-led debate, Rayner said the government needed to go further. “Given the public disgust and the sickening behaviour of Peter Mandelson and the importance of transparency … should we not have the ISC not have the same role now [as in relation to a previous humble address] in keeping public confidence in the process?” she said.
The Cabinet Office minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds, said he would consider the changes. “I am hearing what the house is saying and I will take that point away,” he said.
Ministers are willing to rewrite the government’s amendment, insiders say, and to give the intelligence and security committee a role in deciding what gets published.
MPs from across the house used the debate to call for the ISC to take charge of those decisions rather than the cabinet secretary.
Officials say the prime minister is willing to rewrite his amendment, but wants to ensure the process does not become a “party political” one that the Conservatives use to damage the government further.
The chair of the ISC is Kevan Jones, a Labour peer and former defence minister. The committee is made up of a mix of MPs and peers from different parties, with Labour the most well represented.
