Speeches by Morello.

“Much of this seems to hinge on how much the Prime Minister knew when he was making a decision to appoint Peter Mandelson—and the briefing that he may or may not have got.”

“I appreciate that. You said that you were not involved in the decision-making process around Peter Mandelson because it was a political appointment. Was the Foreign Secretary involved in the decision making?”

“Okay. I mentioned already you served under four Prime Ministers. A search through the records, and you can correct me on this, suggests that the only other political appointment that happened during your tenure as permanent secretary was Sir George Hollingbery, the former Member of Parliament for Meon Valley, who was a…”

“I think this follows on from what Alex was asking you, Sir Philip. You are requesting to see the due diligence report; you are flagging to the Foreign Secretary that you have concerns. In his evidence, Sir Olly told us that this was the only time in which the security department requested to see him on whether to grant…”

“The letter just references the desire to appoint Peter Mandelson. Your letter to the private secretary to the King says that, “The Prime Minister has indicated his intention to recommend…a small number of political appointments”. When you had the conversation on the 15th, that presumably was that the PM will make a num…”

“Well obviously, in his evidence, Sir Olly Robbins said that he was asked or that another name was floated to him, Matthew Doyle. Not only that, but he was asked to keep that information from the Foreign Secretary. If not during the conversation on the 15th, at any subsequent point, were any other names floated to you f…”

“Do you have a view on the accuracy of the statement?”

“May I push back on a couple of those, please, Mr McSweeney? We have already seen that the due diligence report contained the 2019 JP Morgan report, which shows that the relationship was more extensive. As for putting in place the process—the civil servants putting in place the processes—according to Philip Barton’s tim…”

“So that was unique. Given that you never had cause to see the traffic-light system, should we read anything into the fact that Sir Olly, when he had that meeting, was not shown it?”

“Okay. Did he express any reservations at that point about the appointment of Peter Mandelson?”

“Do you want me to narrow it down?”

“I want to quickly go back to your presentation of the conversation with Matthew Doyle: that if there were upcoming ambassadorial posts in the Foreign Office, he should consider applying for them. Can you see how, if you were Matthew Doyle and had just seen the Prime Minister ram Peter Mandelson down the throat of the F…”

“That is not what Sir Olly Robbins told us. Sir Olly Robbins told us that Matthew Doyle’s name was another one floated as a political appointee. Given that when the Prime Minister politically appointed Mandelson it was a lock, it would be fair to assume, if you are Matthew Doyle, that effectively a similar guarantee was…”

“Apologies if we are going over the same point here, but for the point of clarity, the due diligence report is produced by the Cabinet Office. You received that. Did the Prime Minister receive the full unredacted due diligence report, or did you summarise it, or did you brief him orally? What did the Prime Minister rece…”

“Sir Philip, you said that you were informed by the principal private secretary in No. 10 on the 15th.”

“The 18th.”

“So you were informed on the 15th that the Prime Minister wanted to appoint Peter Mandelson?”

“To the Chair’s point about this looking like it was a railroaded decision, prior to the election, you already have the PM identifying that position as one he wants to make a political appointment to. You then have two candidates—again, not to speak to the suitability of either of them, but one is a friend of Jeffrey Ep…”

“Do you want me to narrow it down?”

“I guess I am going back to what you said earlier, which is that the Prime Minister talks to lots of people before coming to the decision himself, but so far, everyone who you have listed seems to be on the fence as to whether or not Peter Mandelson was a good appointment or worth the risk. How do you get to the point w…”