Who is Olly Robbins? Former top civil servant to give evidence after being sacked by Starmer over Mandelson vetting scandal

Sir Olly Robbins is set to answer questions from MPs on Tuesday over allegations he failed to inform Sir Keir Starmer that Lord Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting.

The former mandarin was sacked from his role in the Foreign Office last week following revelations that the department overruled security vetting for Lord Peter Mandelson‘s appointment as UK ambassador to the US.

Speaking in the Commons on Monday, Sir Keir said he was “frankly staggered” he was not told about concerns over Lord Mandelson’s appointment and insisted Foreign Office officials “should and could” have told him.

Sir Olly is understood to have told the prime minister last week that the process for vetting did not allow him to disclose the recommendation made by United Kingdom Security Vetting (UKSV).

Downing Street has said security officials had initially denied clearance for the disgraced Labour peer, but Foreign Office officials took the unusual step of overriding this recommendation.

Sir Keir has insisted he was unaware that the Foreign Office had overruled the recommendation of security officials in early 2025 not to give Peter Mandelson the job.

The former top civil servant has been formally asked to give evidence on the vetting of Lord Mandelson before the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

Who is Sir Olly Robbins?

Sir Olly Robbins first emerged into the spotlight during the tumultuous Brexit years.

The Oxford-educated 50-year-old was a central figure behind former prime minister Theresa May’s troubled Brexit deal and was consistently criticised for his role in negotiations, as well as by Eurosceptics for thwarting the process.

He took charge of negotiations with the EU mid-way through talks, after then Brexit secretary David Davis was sidelined because of a lack of progress, but the deal was rejected repeatedly by the Commons.

Before his Brexit fame, he had worked for every prime minister since Sir Tony Blair and was known as a highly influential but low-profile civil servant.

The public schoolboy went straight from studying politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford to the Treasury in 1996, where he rose steadily through the ranks until he was approached by Sir Tony to become his principal private secretary.

After the 2010 general election, then prime minister David Cameron made Sir Olly deputy national security adviser, where he was responsible for intelligence, security and resilience.

In this role he negotiated with The Guardian on how to limit its reporting of material leaked by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, which included classified documents relating to the CIA and GCHQ.

He left government in 2019, before Boris Johnson took office, and worked for Goldman Sachs as a managing director of the bank’s investment banking division, and for Hakluyt, a global strategic advisory firm.

Sir Keir brought Sir Olly back into Government by appointing him head of the Foreign Office in January 2025.

He had been in the job just three weeks when the decision regarding Lord Mandelson was made.

He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, an honour given for extraordinary services abroad, in Baroness May’s resignation honours.

What comes next for Sir Olly?

Once the Foreign Office’s most senior civil servant, Sir Olly has had a seat at the heart of government during the turbulent last year of Starmer’s premiership.

He has been formally asked to give evidence on the vetting of Lord Mandelson on Tuesday. In a letter from chair of the foreign affairs committee Emily Thornberry, she says reports have “called into question the answers you gave to the Committee when we enquired about Lord Mandelson’s appointment process”.

But Sir Olly’s answers could provide unfiltered access into the inner workings of the prime minister’s government and the vetting outcome he has vehemently denied all knowledge of.

He previously told a Commons committee it was “clear that the prime minister wanted to make this appointment himself”. In the grilling in November, Sir Olly said he said he understood that Sir Keir “took advice and formed a view himself, and we then acted on that view”.

His remarks appear to contradict Downing Street’s position that the Foreign Office overruled the failed vetting decision without informing the prime minister.