Badenoch urges inquiry as Labour resists Starmer Parliament claims

Kemi Badenoch has demanded a Privileges Committee inquiry into whether Sir Keir Starmer misled Parliament over the vetting of Lord Mandelson, sharpening a row that now turns on procedure as much as substance.

The Conservative leader said Starmer had misled MPs “multiple times” and urged Labour backbenchers to “look into their consciences” and support a formal investigation. Labour, meanwhile, has tried to slow the push for a new inquiry, with Dame Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee examining the appointment, saying there was no “rush” and suggesting some MPs were trying to score points ahead of the local elections. Former Labour ministers Lord Blunkett and Alan Johnson have also dismissed the idea, calling it a “waste of money”.

The dispute centres on Mandelson’s appointment as Britain’s ambassador to the US, announced in December 2024, with vetting only starting after the appointment was made public. Starmer has already apologised for making the appointment, but questions have intensified over whether the process was rushed and whether the prime minister’s claims that “full due process” had been followed were accurate. Badenoch also challenged his assertion that “no pressure existed whatsoever” on the Civil Service to speed things up.

Evidence already heard by MPs has deepened the political pressure. Sir Olly Robbins, the senior Foreign Office official until he was sacked by the prime minister, told the Foreign Affairs Committee there had been “constant pressure” to accelerate the process so Mandelson could be in Washington for Donald Trump’s inauguration. Cat Little, the most senior official in the Cabinet Office, told MPs that the Foreign Office security team requested access to Mandelson’s vetting file on 15 September 2025, the same day The Independent reported officials had been alerted to a failed enhanced vetting process. The paper had contacted Tim Allan, Starmer’s then director of communications, on 11 September 2025 and published its front-page story that day.

Any move to launch a Privileges Committee inquiry would require Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, to allow a debate first, before MPs voted on whether to proceed. That vote could come as soon as Tuesday. Because the government holds a majority in the House of Commons, Labour MPs would need to back the move, or abstain in large numbers, for an inquiry to pass.

The stakes are high because the Privileges Committee has already shown it can end a premiership’s credibility. In 2022, the Commons backed a Labour motion to investigate Boris Johnson over partygate, and the committee later found evidence he may have misled MPs multiple times. Its final report in June 2023 found repeated contempts of Parliament, after which Johnson resigned as an MP. Under the Ministerial Code, ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament are expected to resign, while inadvertent errors should be corrected at the earliest opportunity.