Speeches by Kumaran.

“As part of that process, did you raise any concerns that you had personally, or any risks that you thought might arise as a result of it?”

“I understand. Do you recall your conversation with Sir Olly regarding the handover of this decision? In that conversation, did you discuss any of the pressures, whether that be time pressure or political pressure?”

“I have a follow-up to that. Yesterday, the former Foreign Secretary, now Deputy Prime Minister, said—as the Chair said—that he had expressed worries. You said that this was a conversation in the margins. Given how serious an appointment it was, and the level of media scrutiny—rightly—that there was on this appointment,…”

“Okay. On this announcement, you said that the normal order was for the vetting to happen first, and the announcement to happen second. Obviously, you said that it was No. 10’s decision for it to have gone in this order. Did you know that that was going to happen? Were you aware that it was being announced?”

“Was the Prime Minister led to believe that Peter Mandelson’s risks—the cons, as you have set out—were manageable? Did you have that conversation with him? Did anyone have that conversation with him?”

“Did you raise any of your concerns with the Foreign Secretary, for him to make a judgment to pass them on, or anything like that? Was there any conversation about the worries that you both seem to have had?”

“In your answers today, you said that you didn’t feel that the truth was put forward at the time by Peter Mandelson in his response to your emails. Did you communicate that to the Prime Minister?”

“Did you warn of any risk of proceeding this way? Did you speak to the Foreign Secretary, anyone at No. 10 or anyone else in the Department?”

“I agree. Would you let me ask one final question, Chair? This appointment was a hugely significant decision. It had national and international repercussions, as well as reputational risk. There was a well-publicised friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. The view of the FCDO and the civil service, time and again, has been th…”

“Sir Philip, this is a question about judgment and the reasons why Sir Olly left his post. Would you have informed No. 10 or the Prime Minister of the concerns about Peter Mandelson and those leaked emails—the emails released by the US Department for Justice—after the decision to sack Mandelson? If the view from the civ…”

“The fact that there are risks in proceeding this way, and that the normal process is for vetting to happen first and the announcement second—that by going ahead with this timeline, which is not the normal process, No. 10 and the Foreign Office could be open to criticism and/or process failures.”

“I have a follow-up to that. Yesterday, the former Foreign Secretary, now Deputy Prime Minister, said—as the Chair said—that he had expressed worries. You said that this was a conversation in the margins. Given how serious an appointment it was, and the level of media scrutiny—rightly—that there was on this appointment,…”

“Would you have expected senior civil servants to intervene to flag any issues, to say, “Actually, this is not how the process happens. The vetting should happen first,” because Sir Philip Barton said that vetting should happen first. We are not from the civil service and we are not to be expected to know this. Would yo…”

“You said that you made clear to the Prime Minister the pros and cons of this appointment, and that you would not have put Peter Mandelson forward had Kamala Harris won the presidency. Do you think the politics of the day were weighing more heavily, rather than the trade deal, or were they hand in hand?”

“Okay. So you didn’t raise with the Prime Minister that you had these concerns. You just put these questions to Peter Mandelson, you got the answers, and that was that.”

“But there was not any intervention from you.”

“As part of that process, did you raise any concerns that you had personally, or any risks that you thought might arise as a result of it?”

“It looks like you have been following our evidence sessions closely. You have seen these traffic-light boxes—the UKSV red boxes. It turns out that, at every stage of this process, the boxes were never actually seen, until this was leaked. It is a bizarre process all round, and one that does not seem fit for purpose. We…”

“If you had become aware that there were issues with UKSV, given how high profile this appointment was, would you have raised this with the Foreign Secretary?”

“Okay. I asked Cat Little if the developed vetting would have brought up the information that Bloomberg had in their leaks—really grave issues of Peter Mandelson sharing information about market-sensitive matters when he was then in government, which is huge and a betrayal of this country. If that had been put to you, w…”