MPs voted 335 to 223 against investigating whether Sir Keir Starmer misled Parliament over Lord Mandelson’s vetting as US ambassador.
Sir Keir Starmer will not face a parliamentary investigation into claims he misled MPs over the vetting of Lord Mandelson for the role of UK ambassador to the United States.
The House of Commons voted 335 to 223 against a Conservative-led motion that sought to refer the prime minister’s remarks to the Privileges Committee, the cross-party body that considers whether MPs have broken parliamentary rules. The result gave the government a majority of 112.
The vote matters because the Ministerial Code says ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament are expected to resign, while inadvertent errors should be corrected at the earliest opportunity. Starmer has denied accusations that he misled MPs about whether the appointment followed “full due process” and whether any pressure was applied to Foreign Office officials.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch tabled the motion, which set out three areas where she argued Starmer may have misled the Commons: his claim that full process was followed, his statement that Mandelson’s position was subject to developed vetting, and the question of whether the Foreign Office was pressured to approve the appointment.
The government held most Labour MPs in line after a concerted effort by No 10 to defeat the motion. Some Labour MPs on the left of the party had argued Starmer should refer himself to the committee to settle the matter, but the majority of the parliamentary party opposed the Conservative bid.
The division list showed 14 Labour MPs rebelled to support the motion, while one voted both aye and no, a move usually treated as a formal abstention. Another 53 Labour MPs had no vote recorded, which can reflect authorised absence or government business and does not necessarily mean they abstained.
South Shields MP Emma Lewell, one of the Labour rebels, told the debate the government’s handling of the vote “smacks, once again, of being out of touch and disconnected from the public mood”. She said Starmer should have referred himself to the committee with a clear statement that he was doing so to clear his name.
The motion was also supported by the Liberal Democrats, SNP, Greens, DUP, Plaid Cymru, Reform UK and nine independent MPs. Several Labour MPs defended the government’s approach, with Gurinder Singh Josan describing a Privileges Committee referral as premature because the vetting process was already being scrutinised elsewhere in Parliament.
The Commons vote followed further evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee about the Mandelson appointment. Sir Philip Barton, the senior Foreign Office civil servant at the time, said no one in Downing Street consulted him before Starmer decided to send Mandelson to Washington and said he had regarded the appointment as potentially difficult because of Mandelson’s known links to Jeffrey Epstein.
Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s former chief of staff, told MPs he had made “a serious mistake” in recommending Mandelson for the role. He said No 10 wanted Mandelson in post quickly but insisted officials were never asked to skip steps.
Mandelson took up the ambassadorial post in February 2025 and was sacked in September after Downing Street said new information had emerged about the depth of his relationship with Epstein, the late sex offender.
It is not yet clear whether Labour MPs who defied No 10’s instruction to oppose the motion will face action. The defeat of the motion ends the immediate push for a Privileges Committee inquiry, but parliamentary scrutiny of the vetting process is continuing.
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