Starmer believes Mandelson ‘should not be member of Lords’

Sir Keir Starmer believes Lord Mandelson should not be a member of the House of Lords, or use his title, Downing Street has said.

The prime minister has ordered an “urgent” investigation into Lord Mandelson’s contact with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein while the peer was a government minister.

The review comes after another tranche of documents were released, showing the former Labour minister’s close relationship with Epstein.

Among those documents, email exchanges appear to show Lord Mandelson, when business secretary in 2009, forwarded internal government information sent to then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown on to Epstein.

Lord Mandelson has been on a leave of absence from the House of Lords since taking up his position as US ambassador in December 2024, a position he was sacked from in September last year, when further details of his friendship with Epstein were made public.

He has also resigned his Labour Party membership after four decades at the centre of power, but the latest revelations now seem certain to signal the end of his career in public life.

Other emails released by the US Department of Justice on Friday appear to suggest:

* Lord Mandelson advised Epstein in 2009 that the boss of the JP Morgan bank should “mildly threaten” the UK chancellor over a planned tax on bankers’ bonuses
* He gave advance notice to Epstein of a €500bn bailout from the EU to save the Euro
* Epstein made $75,000 (£55,000) in payments to Lord Mandelson in three separate $25,000 transactions in 2003 and 2004
* Epstein sent £10,000 to Lord Mandelson’s partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva in 2009.
In a statement, Brown said he had asked the cabinet secretary to investigate the disclosure of confidential and market sensitive information from the business department during the financial crisis.

The former PM said he had already asked the cabinet secretary to investigate information in the Epstein files about communications between Lord Mandelson and Epstein on asset sales in September last year.

Brown said no record could be found of such communications and he was now asking for “a wider and more extensive enquiry” on the disclosure of government papers.

Meanwhile, in the House of Commons the Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats have called for a police investigation into Lord Mandelson for potential criminality while in public office.

Lord Mandelson has been approached for comment.

The latest review of Lord Mandelson’s contact with Epstein will be carried out by the Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald and will look at “all available information”, No 10 said.

But Downing Street said the prime minister did not have the power to directly remove Lord Mandelson’s title.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “The prime minister believes that Peter Mandelson should not be a member of the House of Lords or use the title.

“However, the prime minister does not have the power to remove it.”

Government officials believe stripping Lord Mandelson of his title through introducing legislation, which has not been done for 100 years, would be complicated and lengthy.

Instead, the prime minister believes modernising disciplinary procedures to make it easier to remove disgraced peers via a Lords’ Conduct Committee would be quicker and simpler.

Sir Keir’s spokesperson added that if Lord Mandelson has information then he should be prepared to testify in front of Congress.

“The prime minister has always said that anyone who has got information should be prepared to share that information,” the Downing Street spokesman said.

“You cannot be victim centred if you are not prepared to do that.”

Emails released in the files indicate that Lord Mandelson – who was then business secretary – discussed the government’s plans for a one-off tax on bankers’ bonuses with Epstein.

The plans were announced on 9 December 2009 by then-chancellor Alistair Darling, who said they could raise £550m to help raise unemployment.

In an email eight days later, Epstein asked Lord Mandelson whether Jamie Dimon, the boss of JP Morgan, should call Darling and said that the tax would raise more than £500m from JP Morgan alone.

Lord Mandelson appears to reply and say “Yes and mildly threaten”, before Epstein then asks if it “make more sense to offer more for the small business fund in exchange for a reduction in tax”.

Other emails suggest that Lord Mandelson forwarded internal government information to Jeffrey Epstein when he was Brown’s business secretary and de facto deputy prime minister.

In June 2009, Brown’s policy adviser Nick Butler wrote an email to the prime minister about the UK’s struggling economy, in which he advocated “releasing value from the very substantial asset base which the government holds” and suggested the government came up with an “asset sales plan”.

Butler copied in several people, including Peter Mandelson, and newly released emails indicate that Mandelson then forwarded that email on to Epstein, with the message: “Interesting note that’s gone to the PM”.

Epstein then replied asking: “what salable [sic] assets?”

A further internal government email, which Mandelson was copied into, was also forwarded to Epstein in August 2009, but it is not clear who forwarded that email to the disgraced financier.

In the August 2009 email, then-government Business Minister Shriti Vadera discussed how to improve financial markets in the wake of the crash and suggested providing funds to struggling companies in exchange for a share of ownership.