Speeches by Kumaran.

“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?”

“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,…”

“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…”

“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?”

“I put on the record that, over the past decade, I have worked twice with the witness—he is used to robust conversations with me. Hello, Morgan. Both Sir Philip Barton and Sir Olly Robbins have said that it was No. 10’s decision to announce the appointment of Peter Mandelson before the vetting process. Did you or did an…”

“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…”

“Returning to the UKSV security vetting system, and respecting your comments on the sanctity of the system, just to be clear, have you ever seen any UKSV form—this type of form, or of any nature—prior to this process?”

“Would it be right to say that, broadly, most senior civil servants never, ever see a form of this nature?”

“Is it also right to say that information about UKSV is only verbally communicated Department to Department?”

“Would you expect, as part of the procedures of how the civil service operates, that there would be a meeting note of these decisions, or how these decisions are verbally briefed, without disclosing the contents of the security vetting?”

“I would like to go on to the judgment point, because a lot seems to rest on judgment, when there seem to be clear processes. Where this is not quite matching the version of events we are hearing from multiple people is where the judgment part comes in.”

“In this case, for this particular appointment, this body is the FCDO.”

“Thank you. This is my final question. Looking at the civil service code of conduct, which we went through as a Committee recently, do you think the Prime Minister was adequately served by either the permanent secretary of the FCDO or indeed the FCDO by being kept in the dark even when those Bloomberg emails came to lig…”

“Sir Olly, as we heard in his evidence, told us that he had “never seen” this form until it was leaked or published. He says that the recommendation that was verbally briefed to him—we cannot see any notes of that meeting—was briefed to him as “leaning” to or “borderline”. I showed him said document, and I understand th…”

“Without disclosing what may or may not have been in the report, the leaked document to Bloomberg at the time contained information that Peter Mandelson had passed on market-sensitive information about high-level discussions happening at Cabinet at a time of grave crisis in Britain. Would information of that nature come…”

“Thank you.”

“That is the questions I have on judgment, to follow up.”

“That is okay.”

“This entire conversation, our inquiry and the way this has been playing out in public, is mostly down to a series of very high-level leaks to very well-known news outlets. We have all talked about the security of the vetting process—the sanctity of the vetting process. Here in Parliament, we have tried our very best to…”

“Sir Oliver, you said you are proud that you didn’t bow to pressure, but of course you were our chief Brexit negotiator. You are very used to high-pressure situations, which is partly why you found yourself in one of the top civil service roles in the country. In one of your earlier answers, you said that you were told …”