WATCH: Olly Robbins admits it would have been 'very difficult' to deny Lord Mandelson clearance

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Emily Thornberry has challenged Sir Olly Robbins on the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson, declaring it "doesn't stack up".In a grilling by the Foreign Affairs Committee, Ms Thornberry pressed Sir Olly: "Really the nub of this is how on earth did this happen?

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Because in the end, he lost his job because he was a threat, and that should have been revealed with the Developed Vetting.

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He was leaking secrets from the British state to a foreign bank, that's pretty serious."Sir Olly responded: "That was not known at the time of his withdrawal, to my knowledge, certainly it wasn't publicly known.

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What was known was that the basis on which the Prime Minister thought he had received assurances from Mandelson about those connections from his past life with Epstein."The Prime Minister can speak for himself, but I remember him visibly angry that, in his view, he'd been deceived about...

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WATCH: Olly Robbins admits it would have been 'very difficult' to deny Lord Mandelson clearance.

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Sir Olly Robbins has admitted it would have been "very difficult" for the Foreign Office to have denied clearance to Lord Mandelson, given the "pressure" he faced from No10.Speaking to the Foreign Affairs committee, Sir Olly said: "All I can do is agree with the premise that against that backdrop, the Foreign Office saying, 'okay sorry, we can't grant him clearance' would have been a very, very difficult problem."And it would have been a difficult problem I would have been landing the Foreign Secretary with and the Prime Minister with.

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