Starmer to face MPs as loyalist minister declines to say that sacking Olly Robbins was fair – UK politics live

Pat McFadden repeatedly declined to say that he thought the sacking of Foreign Office’s top official over Mandelson vetting was fair

Emily Thornberry, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, told Sky News this morning that she thought Keir Starmer was right to sack Olly Robbins as head of the Foreign Office. She said:

I’m not saying I’m not sympathetic. I’m not saying that he hasn’t been through a very difficult time. But if you were to ask me, do I think that, in all the circumstances, it was right for him to lose his job? I think actually it was.

Yes, I think it was. It was a difficult decision as well, and you have to make judgments on these things.

But what we heard from Olly Robbins confirmed what the prime minister set out [on Monday], which was that there were lots of opportunities to tell the prime minister, and the foreign secretary, and the cabinet secretary, that Peter Mandelson had failed the vetting process, and on none of those occasions – either ahead of Peter Mandelson taking the role, or when Peter Mandelson was sacked, or when the foreign secretary was asked by the foreign affairs select committee about the vetting process – on none of those occasions was that information provided.