LONDON: The UK government said on Tuesday it supported the release of documents on ex-prince Andrew’s past role as a trade envoy, hours after a veteran politician was quizzed by police in the widening Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
US authorities last month published millions of files related to late sex offender Epstein, containing revelations which have rocked British political and royal circles.
It has ramped up pressure on Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government to release its own vetting documents and sparked two separate, high-profile police investigations.
The Liberal Democrats party tabled a motion in parliament on Tuesday to force the government to release vetting documents on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment as trade envoy, a post he held from 2001 to 2011.
The former prince was arrested last week on suspicion of misconduct in public office, and his brother King Charles III has said the “law must take its course”. Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey said Andrew’s association with Epstein, and that of former government minister Peter Mandelson, who was arrested on Monday, were a “stain on our country”.
“We must begin to clean away that stain with the disinfectant of transparency,” he said. The push for the files on Andrew comes as the government prepares to release in March a first set of documents relating to the appointment of Mandelson as UK ambassador in Washington.
Mandelson, a key figure in British politics for decades and Britain’s envoy to Washington till September, was arrested on Monday in a separate misconduct in public office probe, also related to his links to Epstein.
Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2026
