Sir Olly Robbins, the senior British Foreign Office official fired last week after it emerged he had concealed Lord Peter Mandelson’s failed security vetting from Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, is facing a parliamentary select committee on Tuesday morning in a hearing that has drawn in Donald Trump, enraged the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, and put Starmer’s government under its sharpest scrutiny yet.
Robbins served as the permanent under secretary at the Foreign Office from January 2025 until his dismissal on 17 April 2026, when the Prime Minister learned that Mandelson had failed the security vetting required for his appointment as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to Washington.
Robbins did not tell Starmer of the failure, a decision he is expected to defend before the committee by arguing that the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act of 2010 did not authorise him to share the conclusions of the UK Security Vetting process with ministers.
“Olly doesn’t do personal. He never has and he never will.”
A close friend of Robbins pushed back against the characterisation of the former civil servant as a rogue or incompetent operator.
“Olly doesn’t do personal. He never has and he never will,” the friend told the BBC, in a description that appears to underscore Robbins’s view that he was acting within his interpretation of the law rather than out of malice or political calculation.
Starmer, however, told the House of Commons on Monday that officials had “deliberately withheld” the vetting result from him, framing the failure as institutional rather than incidental.
The Prime Minister’s allies argue that Robbins, having initially decided not to share the information, had repeated subsequent opportunities to correct the omission and chose not to take them.
Dame Emily Thornberry, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee before which Robbins is appearing, is reported to be furious with the former civil servant for failing to disclose what he knew when the committee specifically asked about Mandelson’s vetting during an earlier session.
A debate on the matter is expected in the House of Commons later Tuesday, secured by the opposition Conservatives.
Trump weighs in as Starmer’s allies rally
The scandal has drawn the attention of US President Donald Trump, who weighed in on the Mandelson affair in comments reported by Sky News on Monday.
The intervention adds a transatlantic dimension to what began as a domestic British governance row, and reflects the significance of the ambassadorial post at the centre of the dispute, given that Washington represents one of the most strategically important diplomatic appointments any British government makes.
An ally of Robbins captured the atmosphere of the past week in a single sentence.
“That’s exactly how it feels,” the ally told the BBC, when asked whether it seemed as though the entire British state was being brought to bear against the sacked civil servant.
The South Africa connection
The Mandelson affair is being closely followed in South Africa because Lord Mandelson, a senior figure in Tony Blair’s Labour governments and a former European Trade Commissioner, was a key architect of trade frameworks that affected African access to European and British markets.
His appointment to Washington, had it proceeded, would have given him significant influence over the UK-US trade relationship in a period when South Africa is navigating its own bilateral trade negotiations.
The story has been covered by South Africa’s Daily Maverick, which published analysis asking why Starmer did not press harder for answers at key moments in the process. It is a question that the select committee is expected to press Robbins on when the session opens.
