A former Newcastle councillor for Walkergate in the city’s East End and later MP for North Durham will have a key role in the inquiry into the circumstances of Lord Mandelson’s appointment last year as UK ambassador to the United States.
Lord Beamish, now chairman of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), started his career as an elected politician as Councillor Kevan Jones, representing Walkergate between 1990 and 2001. He was Labour chief whip on the city council and then cabinet member for regeneration and transport.
He also held the post of chairman of the Northern Region Labour Party and was political and legal officer for the GMB union. According to the BBC in 2002 he had described himself as “not overtly New Labour”.
Jones was elected MP for North Durham in 2001 and held the seat until 2024. While in the Commons he served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Veterans in the Ministry of Defence and held a number of committee posts, mainly in the defence field. He was appointed to the House of Lords in August 2024.
Sensitive task
The BBC reported today that the plan to release documents about Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador had been approved in the Commons after anger from Labour MPs forced the government into a climbdown.
At Prime Minister’s Questions, Keir Starmer said the government would release all material relating to the 2024 appointment – barring national security and international relations exemptions. But after pressure from the Conservatives and some Labour MPs, said the broadcaster, the government had agreed that sensitive documents would be referred to a parliamentary committee – Beamish’s ISC – rather than being automatically exempted.
The sensitivity of the task facing Beamish and the ISC immediately became clear when the Metropolitan Police, which in investigating allegations of misconduct in public office by Mandelson in relation to his connection with the late convicted American paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, revealed it had asked the government not to release certain documents at this time.
Mandelson was Labour MP for Hartlepool between 1992 and 2004.
