Former senior official Sir Philip Barton has told MPs there was no way for him to raise his concerns about Lord Mandelson’s appointment as the UK’s ambassador to the US.

Sir Philip said no-one in Downing Street consulted him before making the decision to appoint Lord Mandelson when he was the top civil servant in the Foreign Office in 2024.

Speaking to the Foreign Affairs Committee, Sir Philip said he thought appointing Lord Mandelson could be a “potentially difficult issue” because of the Labour peer’s known links to the late convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.

But he said he was “presented with a decision” made by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and “told to get on with it”.

Sir Philip said he knew Epstein was “a controversial figure” in the US, adding: “I was worried that this could become a problem in future.”

“That is a very candid account of probably what I was thinking at the time, but there was no space or avenue or mechanism for me to put that on the table,” Sir Philip said.

Sir Philip was appearing in front of the committee to answer questions about the process to vet Lord Mandelson before he took up the high-profile diplomatic role in Washington DC.

Sir Philip was permanent under-secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Affairs (FCDO) between September 2020 and January 2025, a period that covered the process to appoint Lord Mandelson.

Lord Mandelson was announced as the UK’s ambassador to the US in December 2024, with the peer then undergoing in-depth vetting to obtain his required security clearance for the role.

The former Labour minister was then sacked as US ambassador in September last year, after new details emerged about the extent of his friendship with Epstein. Lord Mandelson has since said he regretted ever having known Epstein.

Sir Keir appointed Lord Mandelson to the post, and the decision has dogged him for months, leading to questions about his judgement.

Later Sir Keir will face a vote by MPs on whether there should be a parliamentary investigation over his claims about the vetting of Lord Mandelson.

In his evidence to MPs on Tuesday, Sir Philip said he was first told about the decision to appoint Lord Mandelson on 15 December, 2024 – days before the Labour peer was announced.

When he was informed about the decision, Sir Philip said he was told “a due diligence process had been carried out and as is known now the prime minister had been made aware of the risks and accepted those risks and decided to proceed”.

Sir Philip was asked whether he agreed with his successor at the Foreign Office, Sir Olly Robbins, who last week accused Downing Street of taking a “dismissive attitude” to vetting during Lord Mandelson’s appointment.

Sir Philip said he would not describe No 10’s attitude towards vetting as “dismissive”.

Instead, the former official said Downing Street had been “uninterested” in vetting, and there were time pressures to complete the process before Donald Trump was inaugurated as US president in January 2025.

He said he was “not aware of any pressure on the substance” of Lord Mandelson’s vetting coming from Number 10 and denied media reports that the prime minister’s former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, ever swore at him over the case.

But Sir Philip said there was “absolutely” time pressure to get the vetting done quickly given “the top of the government is saying the prime minister has decided he wants Mandelson” in post.

McSweeney is giving evidence to the same committee on Tuesday morning, ahead of the Commons debate in the afternoon.

Opposition MPs have accused the prime minister of misleading Parliament over his assurances that “due process” was followed during Lord Mandelson’s appointment and his assertion that “no pressure whatsoever” was applied to officials at the Foreign Office.

This afternoon, MPs will vote on whether the Privileges Committee should hold an inquiry into what the prime minister said about the vetting process.

The prime minister has denied the accusations and branded the move a “stunt” by the Conservatives.

The BBC understands Labour MPs are likely to be whipped to vote down the Conservative motion to refer him to the Privileges Committee rather than being given a free vote.

The Foreign Affairs Committee has been hearing evidence about the vetting of Lord Mandelson to be the UK’s ambassador to the United States.

The prime minister sacked Lord Mandelson from the role in September 2025 over his links to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but has been facing ongoing questions about the appointment ever since.

Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney will give evidence to the committee at 11:00 BST but first it heard from Sir Philip Barton, who was the senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, when the PM decided to send Lord Mandelson to Washington DC.

Here are the key points from his evidence so far.

Sir Philip said the first time he was aware of the decision to appoint Lord Mandelson was on 15 December 2024 – five days before the prime minister publicly announced it.

Asked if he believed he should have been consulted about the appointment, Sir Philip said the job was one of the UK’s “major” diplomatic posts and that he thought it was “reasonable” that he should have been involved.

But he also noted that it was a political appointment rather than an internal civil servant recruitment and concluded he was “a bit conflicted” on the question.

He later said that there had been “no space or avenue or mechanism” to express any concerns he might have felt about the appointment.

Conservative MP Aphra Brandreth asked Sir Philip if he’d been asked, would he have expressed worries about picking Lord Mandelson.

He replied he was worried that Lord Mandelson’s links to Epstein “could become a problem”.

He later said he did not know what further information would come out about the friendship between the two men but at the time had identified that Epstein was “a toxic hot potato subject” in the US.

He added that Donald Trump’s team had been “happy” with the existing ambassador Dame Karen Pierce and had been “blindsided” by the Lord Mandelson appointment.

Last week, Sir Philip’s successor at the Foreign Office Sir Olly Robbins said Downing Street had been “dismissive” of the vetting process.

Asked about that description, Sir Philip said: “The word I would use is disinterested.”

He said the focus was on making sure Lord Mandelson was able to start his job by the time of Trump’s inauguration.

Sir Philip said that no-one had asked him, given the risks, to ensure that the vetting process was “rigorous”.

Sir Philip partly backed up Sir Olly’s assertion that the Foreign Office faced “constant pressure” to complete the vetting process.

He said there were two areas where pressure could have been applied – on the substance of the vetting case, and on the speed of the vetting.

On the substance, he said that he was “not aware” of any pressure but there was “absolutely” pressure to “get it done by a particular time scale”.

“The top of the government is saying the prime minister has decided he wants Mandelson and he wants it done in that timescale, so that’s what creates the pressure.”

Last week in the House of Commons, the prime minister said “no pressure existed whatsoever” on the case.

Over the weekend, he expanded on his comment, telling the Sunday Times there were “different types of pressure”.

“There’s pressure – ‘can we get this done quickly?’ – which is not an unusual pressure. That is the everyday pressure of government.”

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Cabinet ministers have been rallying support for Sir Keir Starmer, ahead of a vote by MPs on whether he should face a parliamentary investigation over his claims about the vetting of Lord Mandelson.

The prime minister has denied accusations he misled MPs over whether the vetting for the role US ambassador followed “due process” and over his assertion that “no pressure whatsoever” was applied to officials at the Foreign Office.

Giving an impassioned speech to Labour MPs on Monday evening, the PM branded the vote, which was requested by the Conservatives, “pure politics” and urged them to “stand together against it”.

The BBC has been told Labour MPs have been ordered to vote down the proposal.

It is unlikely the vote will pass as this would require a mass rebellion by Labour MPs and there is no evidence one is brewing.

However, it will take place after two former senior government figures – the PM’s ex-chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and the former top civil servant at the Foreign Office Sir Philip Barton – give evidence to MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

It is possible their accounts could change the mood among MPs.

In a sign of how politically damaging a major rebellion could be, there was a concerted operation by No 10 on Monday evening to ensure Labour MPs were on side.

This included cabinet ministers ringing round backbenchers and senior Labour figures, including former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, issuing public statements backing the prime minister.

One MP told the BBC they gave a slightly equivocal answer to their whip – responsible for party discipline – about how they would vote and got a phone call from a cabinet minister minutes later.

The motion which MPs will vote on was spearheaded by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch but was also signed by Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, as well as SNP, DUP and independent MPs.

It identifies three possible areas where the PM may have misled the Commons.

These include Sir Keir’s repeated insistence that “full due process” was followed in Lord Mandelson’s appointment, that he was “subject to developed vetting”, that “nobody put pressure” on the top civil servant at the Foreign Office to make the appointment and that “no pressure whatsoever exists in relation to this case”.

If the motion passes, the issue would be looked at by MPs on the Privileges Committee.

The cross-party committee can look into cases of MPs breaking parliamentary rules and in 2023 it ruled that the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson had misled MPs about parties in Downing Street during Covid.

The Ministerial Code states that ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament are expected to resign, while any inadvertent error should be corrected “at the earliest opportunity”.

Badenoch has argued Sir Keir misled Parliament “multiple times” and urged Labour MPs to “look into their consciences” and back an inquiry by the Privileges Committee.

A Downing Street spokesperson said the claims “have no substance” and the government is “engaging with the two parliamentary processes that are already running” on Lord Mandelson’s appointment “with full transparency”.

On Monday, the government published a letter from September 2025 in which the then-head of the Civil Service Sir Chris Wormald told the prime minister that “appropriate processes” were followed in the appointment.

Written evidence from the Foreign Office done in consultation with Ian Collard, the civil servant who was head of security in the department, was also published on Monday by the Foreign Affairs Committee.

It noted that Collard “felt pressure to deliver a rapid outcome” on Lord Mandelson’s vetting clearance due to “regular contact from No 10” with the department.

It added Collard “did not personally speak to colleagues in No 10” and he “does not assess that this pressure influenced the professional judgement that was reached by himself or his team”.

This backed up the account of Sir Olly Robbins, who was the senior civil servant in the Foreign Office until he was sacked by the PM.

He told the Foreign Affairs Committee last week that there was “constant pressure” over when the vetting process would be completed, although he insisted this did not affect his decision to give Lord Mandelson security clearance.

In an apparent effort to clarify his comments in Parliament, Sir Keir told the Sunday Times there are “different types of pressure”.

“There’s pressure – ‘Can we get this done quickly?’ – which is not an unusual pressure. That is the everyday pressure of government,” he said.

Liberal Democrat Cabinet Office spokeswoman Lisa Smart MP said Labour MPs “must put principle before party and vote to refer Keir Starmer to the Privileges Committee”.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said he believed the prime minister had misled the House of Commons more than once.

“Boris Johnson tried it – didn’t get away with it – no reason why Keir Starmer should,” he added.

Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, said there were “lots of questions about the prime minister’s conduct” and that he would support an inquiry, but argued the issue was a “huge distraction” from the main issues facing the public.

Dame Emily Thornberry said her committee was already investigating the appointment and that she did not want the Privileges Committee to be “duplicating the work we’re doing”.

“It may be that at some stage in the future, some of the questions haven’t been answered, and it is decided that they are of sufficient importance that the Privileges Committee should be involved,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“But I don’t really see why we’re doing it at the moment, apart from, potentially people trying to score points in advance of the local elections.”

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King Charles is expected to say “time and again, our two countries have always found ways to come together” during his address to the US Congress later on Tuesday.

The centrepiece of the second day of the King’s state visit comes at a tense time in UK-US relations, during which President Donald Trump has repeatedly lambasted Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer over his response to the Iran war.

Security in Washington DC is extremely tight, with the four-day state visit beginning just two days after a gunman stormed an event attended by the president in the capital.

The King is expected to express sympathy over the attack in his speech.

The official visit, during which the King has been joined by Queen Camilla, is the first since Queen Elizabeth II’s in 2007.

In the speech, the King is also expected to say that in times of great international challenges, it is more necessary than ever to stand together to defend democratic values.

His address will also call for “reconciliation and renewal” of the US and UK partnership and advocate for shared values of tolerance, liberty and equality.

The King will urge those beliefs are defended, whether through supporting Nato or protecting Ukraine, according to royal sources.

An end to the bitter 14-month-long dispute by bin workers in Birmingham is “within sight”, the city’s Labour council leader has claimed.

Unite the Union members have been taking action since January last year, with an all-out strike launched in March, leaving rubbish piled on streets and residents with no recycling service.

Authority leader John Cotton said after months of “frustration and delay” he believed a new offer could now be made, which Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said was a “vindication” for striking workers.

However, opposition parties accused the administration of a “stunt” ahead of next Thursday’s council elections and said they were playing “political games”.

The dispute initially centred on the council’s decision to remove Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) roles, which it insisted was necessary to make improvements.

The union claimed about 170 affected workers faced losing up to £8,000 a year but the council disputed those figures.

Cotton said negotiations had been “challenging and complex,” but an improved offer could be made, addressing issues discussed at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) last year.

“A deal that would be good for the workforce, represent good value for money and would not repeat the mistakes of the past and risk creating new structural equal pay liabilities,” he said.

The striking workers were praised by their union for getting a deal back on the table.

The full details will stay confidential while they wait for the detailed offer from the city council, Unite said, adding it would have to be voted on by the workers.

Graham said the offer was a “vindication of the bin workers’ struggle for a decent deal”.

“I salute the fortitude of my members who have needlessly been forced to endure months of attacks and hardship to get us to this point,” she added.

The union claimed the reason the offer had not yet been completed was down to government-appointed commissioners, who had been employed to help the council balance the books.

Onay Kasab, Unite national lead officer said the offer would include compensation of £16,000 for workers.

Previous offers did not include compensation for drivers, Kasab said, and this change helped bring the dispute close to a conclusion.