Cabinet Office to ask Mandelson to provide messages from personal phone

Concerns that exchanges about US ambassador appointment may have been lost after theft of McSweeney’s phone Peter Mandelson will be asked to supply messages from his personal phone as part of the investigation into his appointment as Keir Starmer’s ambassador to the US.

In February, MPs forced the government to commit to publishing tens of thousands of documents after a controversy erupted over the prime minister’s awareness of the former peer’s links to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein before he was given the prestigious posting.

The Cabinet Office is working to obtain as much information as possible about the process, according to No 10 sources. Mandelson has not yet been asked to hand over messages but will be told to provide everything he holds within the scope of the humble address, the parliamentary procedure that can be used to try to force the release of correspondence.

On Friday, the Times reported that Mandelson had handed over his work phone after being sacked as US ambassador because of his close friendship with the late financier, but said the Cabinet Office had not asked for messages on his personal device. Officials were said to be attempting to “reconstruct” the contents of his personal phone by asking ministers and officials for any correspondence.

Downing Street sources said a team of officials were gathering communications, including WhatsApp messages and emails, from anyone who would have been in contact with Mandelson. While the former peer had not yet been asked for messages from his personal phone, he would be and that had always been “part of the plan”, they said.

“This is a significant administrative process,” said a No 10 source. “There is a determination in government to comply in full with the humble address, but there is a process to follow.

We want to get this out there as soon as we can.” Parliament is now in recess, and it is understood that the information gathered will be put before parliament’s intelligence and security committee, which will assess whether releasing the documents would compromise national security.

The Metropolitan police will also be given oversight of the information gathered to ensure it does not interfere with a separate investigation into allegations that Mandelson committed misconduct in public office. Concerns have been raised that exchanges relating to the appointment could be lost after the theft of Morgan McSweeney’s mobile phone last year.

But the Guardian understands the Cabinet Office holds a number of text and email exchanges between Starmer’s former chief of staff and Mandelson. A tranche of McSweeney’s correspondence is expected to be released publicly as part of the Mandelson files.

It emerged this week that McSweeney did not disclose that he was Starmer’s chief of staff when he reported the theft of his phone, according to a transcript released by the Met in a highly unorthodox move for the force, which said it wanted to correct misreporting of the incident.

Mandelson, a political appointment rather than a career diplomat, was sacked from his Washington role in September last year over his links with Epstein, who died in 2019. McSweeney became the focus of MPs’ ire, with many blaming him for pushing for the appointment.

He quit Downing Street last month. The prime minister said it was “far-fetched” to suggest that the theft of McSweeney’s phone was somehow connected with a subsequent push for the release of documents. Kemi Badenoch had “raised an eyebrow” in relation to accounts about the theft, a spokesperson for the Conservative leader said on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Starmer said he “hates the fact” that he made a “mistake” over the appointment of Mandelson. “I dwell on it. I beat myself up about it,” he told Sky News’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast. “Nobody has been harder on me in relation to the mistake I made there than me.

It’s certainly not a mistake I’d ever repeat.”