Closing summary
That’s all from us on the UK politics live blog, thank you for following along. A quick recap of today’s developments:
Prime minister Keir Starmer said he “made the mistake” in appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador “and it’s me that makes the apology to the victims of Epstein”. It was his first comments on Mandelson since the release of the files relating to his appointment yesterday.
Starmer said the documents “shows what was known” about Mandelson’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at the time of his appointment, and that “led to further questions being asked”. The prime minister said that exchange cannot be published yet as it forms part of a Metropolitan police investigation.
Downing Street denied leaving key details out of documents. Starmer’s official spokesperson said there was no “cover-up” after a comment box in the due diligence report reserved for his response was left blank.
MPs have voiced anger over the £75,000 severance payout Mandelson received after he was sacked as ambassador to the US last year. The documents showed he initially asked for more than half a million pounds.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Mandelson should not have received anything. “If someone has been dishonest and lied, you don’t give them a severance payment,” she said. “So something very dodgy has happened.”
Cabinet minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said the taxpayer-funded payout was “value for money”, as it was negotiated down from £547,000 to £75,000. He suggested that the money should be donated to a charity supporting Epstein victims, saying it would be “the decent thing” to do.
The Liberal Democrats urged Keir Starmer to refer himself to the ethics adviser for potentially misleading parliament. The party suggested the revelations in the Mandelson documents were at odds with Starmer’s repeated insistence that “full due process was followed”.
Elsewhere, Hannah Spencer, the newly elected Green party MP for Gorton and Denton, delivered her maiden speech during a debate marking International Women’s Day (IWD). “Four weeks ago today, I was in college, a plumber learning how to plaster. And today I’m in parliament as an MP,” she said. “Being here is the honour of my life.”
Several Labour MPs are in talks about defecting to the Greens, but are seeking guarantees they would be backed electorally by their new party, the Guardian has been told. A series of senior Green figures have confirmed that talks with several MPs are happening, but that none are yet at the stage of wanting to commit.
Jess Phillips read out the names of the 108 women killed in the UK by men – or where a man has been charged – in the last 12 months in parliament. “We refuse to forget these women, who all deserved so much more,” the Labour MP said during the IWD parliamentary debate.
Over in Scotland, the deputy first minister Kate Forbes said her government had not been consulted on proposals from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to build two defence technical colleges in the country, claiming to have received no details on the plans.
Earlier today the defence procurement minister Luke Pollard and Douglas Alexander, the Scottish secretary, said the MoD would spend £20m on the two colleges (known as DTECs) but only if the Scottish “stepped up” and match-funded them.
Forbes said this was news to her administration. She said:
We welcome any announcement involving Scottish colleges. However, at this point we have received no details from the UK government, have not been consulted and have received no formal request for match funding.
Pollard told reporters at an event near Glasgow airport that Scottish government officials were fully aware of the DTEC programme, which was already being rolled out in England and Wales, but he and Alexander admitted their cash offer was new.
“Well, we’re making the offer today, and it’s for them to make a determination,” Pollard said, arguing that to date the Scottish government had shown hostility to defence training spending, referring to the refusal by Scottish Enterprise to fund a Rolls-Royce advance welding training centre in Glasgow because of its military links.
“We have spoken to Scottish government officials about DTECs in Scotland and have been for quite some time.
“We’ve been absolutely clear with our Scottish government that we expect to see more support for skills in Scotland because the MoD as a reserved department is putting in huge amounts of more money into Scottish businesses, but we need to see a collaborative approach on skills if we’re to realise the full benefit of that increasing defence budget.”
Forbes said Scottish ministers agreed that collaboration was needed. She said the £50m defence growth deal Pollard and Alexander also announced today overlapped with some Scottish investment initiatives.
“This is why working together is important, and the Scottish government has requested a role on the committee which will support the design and implementation of the defence growth deal in Scotland.”
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