A former cabinet minister has said Peter Mandelson would have had to have signed the Official Secrets Act in his role as Secretary of State for Business.

Speaking on GB News Sir Ranil Jayawardena said:
“It seems a pretty clear breach of those tests set out by the courts already.

“You also touched on the Official Secrets Act and you know, being a cabinet minister in itself doesn’t require the signing of it. But the department he was in charge of, the Department of Business, I know having been in one of its successor departments, that of some of the business that you have to conduct is covered by the Official Secrets Act.

“It involves arms and so on, so I had to sign it. And so I’m sure he would have had to sign it.

“Now, the interesting defence he just said out there was that he had authority, because as the Secretary of State in that department, it’s almost for him to determine whether something should be made public or not.

“It is shocking. It is shocking. I don’t think when this broke the first time around, even how terrible that was, that we could have foreseen that he would be revealing a market sensitive information, that he would be saying the quiet part out loud in terms of some of the security measures that the UK Government has still to the to this day, which could be useful in the future.

“That he seemed to have such an intense personal relationship with this man, in a way that I’m sure viewers will be absolutely perplexed by.

“But I think it also raises questions about others in this government, and not just on Morgan McSweeney or the Prime Minister. David Lammy as Foreign Secretary, will have had to personally intervene to make him ambassador.

“How much did he know? He and McFadden were juniors in the business department.

“Way back when you know when he was at the [dept for] business. Pat McFadden, David Lammy, names we will now know today as cabinet ministers, they were Junior ministers.

“What part? How much do they know at that moment in time?”