Ian Collard: the Foreign Office insider who may be key to Mandelson scandal
His name was only mentioned twice – and the meeting he had with Olly Robbins may have only lasted 10 minutes.But Ian Collard is a central – and perhaps the key – figure in the scandal over how Peter Mandelson ended up receiving the security clearance to become Britain’s ambassador in Washington.According to Robbins’s evidence to the foreign affairs committee on Tuesday, it was Collard, head of the estates, security and network directorate in the Foreign Office, who gave him an oral briefing on 29 January 2025.Robbins explained Collard had been having a “live dialogue” about Mandelson with the separate UK Security Vetting (UKSV) team, based in the Cabinet Office.Collard had then asked to speak to Robbins for what turned out to be a critical meeting: it concluded with Mandelson being granted vetting clearance.
What Collard said to Robbins during those few minutes is now the focus of great scrutiny.Robbins said to MPs he was told by Collard that officials in UKSV, who had interviewed Mandelson twice, had concluded he was a “borderline” case and were “leaning towards recommending that clearance be denied”.But that is at odds with what Downing Street and the Cabinet Office knows of the UKSV assessment.As revealed by the Guardian, the UKSV had actually been far more definitive than that.It had concluded by ticking two red boxes: “high concern” and “clearance denied”.
Now, Collard has been summoned by the foreign affairs committee to explain the apparent discrepancy.He will do so with an extensive background in the diplomatic service.With a first-class anthropology degree and a doctorate in evolutionary studies, he took the natural next step of a Cambridge graduate: he joined the Foreign Office in 2002.Postings followed in Washington and New York, before returning to London to be head of the North America department.In 2012, Collard had a role in the counter-terrorism department, helping manage security for the London Olympics.
He had a stint as ambassador in Panama, then back to Whitehall to be head of the counter-terrorism unit.Ambassadorial roles in Afghanistan and Lebanon followed until, in 2023, he became the chief property and security officer in the Foreign Office.Robbins said he and Collard met regularly and that he was “one of most important figures in the way that I was learning how to run the department”.“Ian was in and out of my private office regularly, and I was pleased about that,” Robbins said.Collard’s appearance before the select committee will not be his first.
He has previously given evidence to the public accounts committee – sat with none other than Robbins.He faced questions then about the sprawling global estate of the Foreign Office, its embassies, residences, and high commissions.But MPs, probing the decision-making in the grand neoclassical rooms of the department’s headquarters on King Charles Street, will need to establish what happened in the 24-hour period between UKSV’s decision on 28 January and the meeting with Robbins on 29 January.One former official, familiar with security processes across the British state, said that MPs should establish a timeline of events.Robbins told MPs that the Foreign Office’s personnel security team – which Collard leads – had been debating with UKSV about some of the specific risks.
As a result, he said, some of those risks had “shifted up and down a bit, and then the Foreign Office had reached its assessment and briefed me”.People in Collard’s role across Whitehall, whose day-to-day job is about risk management, do have conversations with UKSV.But MPs may want to ask more about what the content of those talks were, and what records may exist of them.Did he see the UKSV vetting file, with two red boxes ticked? If so, what happened next? It is possible, the source said, that Collard may not have even seen a full and detailed reasoning and risks report behind UKSV’s recommendation.Robbins has said that “managing these risks as part of the clearance process is not unusual”.
MPs could examine exactly just how unusual this is and ask Collard on how many occasions he had received a double-red UKSV recommendation and decided to recommend security clearance,Robbins has spoken of the “pressure” that the Foreign Office was coming under from Downing Street to get Mandelson in Washington,Did Collard feel pressure to secure clearance for Mandelson? If so, from who?
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