Steve Reed has blamed the intelligence services for failing to stop the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to the USA.

Speaking to GB News, the Housing Secretary said Mr Mandelson behaved “appallingly” in his relations with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Following Mr Mandelson’s departure from the Upper Chamber, Sir Keir Starmer admitted the vetting process before he was appointed as the UK’s Ambassador to the US “dealt with” the ex-Cabinet Minister’s stay at the late convicted paedophile’s house.

The Prime Minister said: “As the House would expect, we went through a process. There was a due diligence exercise and then there was security vetting by the security services. What was not known was the depth, the sheer depth and extent of the relationship. He lied about that to everyone for years.

“New information was published in September, showing the relationship was materially different to what we’d been led to believe.

“When the new evidence came to light, I sacked him, but we did go through a due diligence exercise. The points that are being put to me were dealt with within that exercise.”

Delivering his verdict on the scandal, Mr Reed told GB News: “It’s a truly terrible situation we’re looking at because of the deception and lies that we’ve had from Peter Mandelson. Now all of us are seeing what he’s really been up to, and it’s like a punch in the gut, to be honest.

“Not just the depth and extent of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and the pain that that inevitably will cause all of Epstein’s victims, but the fact that Mandelson lied to two prime ministers now and was sending confidential, market sensitive information, more or less straight from cabinet into Epstein’s hands.”

Arguing that the vetting process Mr Mandelson undertook “didn’t show up anything”, he added: “Now, when Mandelson was appointed ambassador to the United States, and of course, everyone regrets that now, he went through a vetting process and he lied about the relationship he had with Epstein, and the vetting process didn’t show anything up or to show that he was lying.

“And so he was appointed, but he was quickly removed as soon as the truth came to light.”

Assuring that the release of the Mandelson files will provide answers as to what Keir Starmer knew and when, Mr Reed explained: “The questions can be asked by releasing the documentation so that everybody can see what the Prime Minister saw when Mandelson was appointed.

“So the point of yesterday’s debate in Parliament was like, what is the best way to get that information out as quickly as possible, while not compromising national security, if there’s anything in there that might put that at risk.

“So the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is a cross-party committee, will be looking at those documents first, then they will be released, and then you and I and all of your viewers will be able to see for ourselves precisely what was known.

“But we do know Mandelson lied, that’s why he was appointed. But when the first set of Epstein files were released and the truth about to that extent came out, the Prime Minister acted to be fair, decisively, and he sacked him on the spot.”

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Pushing back on Mr Reed’s remarks, host Anne Diamond responded: “If you know somebody is best friends with a convicted paedophile, you don’t appoint them to be the ambassador to the US, and we all knew that.”

The Housing Secretary told GB News: “What he said was the Epstein relationship no longer existed, and that when it had existed, it had been almost nothing. They barely knew each other.

“That’s what he said, and that’s what the Prime Minister believed to be true, and the vetting process didn’t throw up anything that contradicted that.”

He continued: “Now, as soon as the first wave of Epstein files were released, and it became clear that his relationship had been much more profound and much longer going, the Prime Minister sacked him there, and then he was phoned up at 5am in the morning, while he was still asleep, woken up and told he was out of that job. Straight away, that was months ago.

“We’ve had more files released now, and that shed even more light on the appalling behaviour that Mandelson was up to.”

Asked if MI5 and MI6 would have raised the issue during vetting, Mr Reed said: “Well, you make a really important point there, if I can say so. The vetting process was the same vetting process that has been in place for years. In this case it has clearly failed.

“So we’ll want to look at that vetting process to find out why was it that Mandelson’s deception was not exposed to that point because he should never have been appointed.

“If the [security] forces had come up with more information that showed what had been really going on, he would never have become the UK ambassador, but he did.

“Everyone regrets that, but there are clearly things we need to learn to improve that vetting process for the future, because there can be no repeat of this.”

Grilled on why Keir Starmer was unable to tell if he was being lied to, he said: “Well, he’s a barrister, not a clairvoyant, and you’re only as good as the information that is given to you.

“So he acted on that information, and he acted on it in good faith as soon as additional information was made available to him.

“Just a few months later, Mandelson was sacked on the spot, and rightly so. We now know that Mandelson was doing even worse things than came to light at that point.

“So he’s also going to be removed from the Privy Council that’s stripped of his title of a Lord. He’s no longer a member of the Labour Party.

“Of course, that goes without saying, but he was betraying so many people, two prime ministers, Epstein’s victims, and the whole country, with what he was emailing confidential information from Cabinet to Jeffrey Epstein. Nobody knew about that. We should have known.”