The most senior official at the Foreign Office is leaving his post, after the decision to fail Lord Mandelson’s security vetting for the role of US ambassador was overruled by his department.
The BBC understands Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper have lost confidence in Sir Olly Robbins, and he has effectively been sacked.
It comes after the government confirmed the Foreign Office went against the recommendation of the vetting agency and allowed Lord Mandelson to take up the post.
A spokesperson said neither Sir Keir nor any minister were aware Lord Mandelson had failed the vetting process until earlier this week.
Lord Mandelson was announced as the UK’s ambassador to the US in December 2024, before in-depth vetting had been carried out, and formally took up the role on 10 February 2025.
Just seven months later he was sacked over his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Sir Keir has faced calls to resign over allegations he misled Parliament and MPs when he claimed “full due process” was followed during the appointment.
During Prime Minister’s Questions on 10 September 2025, Sir Keir said three times that “full due process” was followed for the appointment.
The Ministerial Code states that ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament are expected to resign.
Taking questions from journalists following a press conference on 5 February in Hastings, Sir Keir also said that there was “security vetting carried out independently by the security services, which is an intensive exercise that gave [Lord Mandelson] clearance for the role, and you have to go through that before you take up the post”.
The revelations about Lord Mandelson’s vetting have reignited anger over his appointment and raise further questions over the prime minister’s judgement.
Sir Keir is expected to give a statement on the issue in the House of Commons on Monday.
Calling for the PM to stand down earlier, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said: “It is either, he knew that Mandelson failed the security vetting and lied to us in Parliament, on TV repeatedly, or he didn’t know, didn’t ask and said he had passed the security vetting – which means he is hopelessly incompetent.”
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said that if it was true the PM was not aware Lord Mandelson had failed security vetting, he should have “told Parliament at the earliest opportunity, not waited for the media to force the truth out”.
“His failure to do that alone is surely a breach of the ministerial code,” he added.
Reform UK, the Green Party and Plaid Cymru have also called for the prime minister to go, accusing him of lying about Lord Mandelson’s vetting.
Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party have written to the independent adviser on ministerial standards, Sir Laurie Magnus, calling for an investigation into whether the PM deliberately misled the public.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said: “The prime minister is either incompetent, gullible or a liar. Or all three.”
Sir Olly, who has held a number of senior Civil Service roles and served as Theresa May’s chief Brexit negotiator, was appointed permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office in January 2025.
Earlier, Labour MP Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, said she felt she had been “misled” by Sir Olly when he gave evidence to her committee last November about Lord Mandelson’s vetting.
“We gave them direct questions and they half answered it, but they missed out the bit that was important… he didn’t pass the vetting,” she told the BBC.
Friends of Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s chief adviser at the time who resigned in February over his role in Lord Mandelson’s appointment, told the BBC he had not known about the conclusion of the vetting process.
The developed vetting process is carried out by UK Security Vetting, a specialist agency within the Cabinet Office, and is designed to make sure individuals are unlikely to abuse their access to secret material, or be subject to blackmail or bribery.
It includes checks on a candidate’s credit history and criminal record.
Those being vetted also have to undertake an interview with a specially trained vetting officer, which can cover areas including candidates’ health, friendships, family and sexual history.
The BBC understands Lord Mandelson had no knowledge about the judgements reached during his vetting process until it was reported in the media, and that no-one at any level raised anything about it with him following his vetting interview.
In February, the government agreed to release documents relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment, following a vote by MPs for them to be published.
However, the Guardian reported that senior government officials had been considering whether to withhold documents from Parliament revealing Lord Mandelson was not given vetting approval from security officials.
A spokesperson said the government was committed to complying with a parliamentary motion demanding the release of documents related to the appointment “in full as soon as possible”.
Sir Keir was said to be “furious” after he found out on Tuesday evening that Lord Mandelson had failed vetting, as part of the process of going through documents to be published.
The BBC understands David Lammy, the foreign secretary at the time of Lord Mandelson’s appointment, did not find out the Foreign Office had overruled the vetting until Thursday afternoon.
By BBC News
Email your news TIPS to Editor@Kahawatungu.com — this is our only official communication channel
