In April Olly Robbins was dismissed as Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Head of the Diplomatic Service by the Prime Minister over the vetting of Lord Mandelson for his appointment as Ambassador to the United States. Following the FDA’s condemnation of this decision at the time, on Monday 13 July the union issued the following statement:
“The FDA represents Sir Oliver Robbins. Olly has today issued proceedings requesting a Judicial Review of his dismissal as Permanent Under-Secretary of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Head of the Diplomatic Service.
“The Prime Minister has acknowledged that his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the United States in December 2024 was a mistake. He should also admit that sacking Olly was a mistake, based on a grievous misunderstanding of how the National Security Vetting (NSV) system worked and a rash response to a media story.
“A point of principle is at stake, which affects all FDA members. It damages the core values of a professional and impartial civil service if its most senior officials can be dismissed on a Prime Ministerial whim, without even the semblance of a fair process or considered understanding of the core issue.
“Olly’s submission to the Court is that:
“Following the request for Judicial Review of his dismissal, Olly said:
“‘I bring this action reluctantly. It would have been unnecessary if the Prime Minister had simply apologised for his mistake and made amends for the distress and cost it has caused me and my family. Instead, I now have to ask the Courts to determine that the Prime Minister’s decisions were unlawful, unreasonable and to quash them.’”
Following the announcement of the legal challenge, FDA General Secretary Dave Penman told the Times Radio breakfast show that the decision to dismiss Robbins was made in “a matter of minutes” without any due process:
“I think ultimately, Keir Starmer reacted to a news story and reacted badly to that, and he rushed the decision around this before he fully understood all the issues around the vetting of Peter Mandelson. Now, the Prime Minister could have thought about that, could have reconsidered it in light of events and what happened over the next few days, and could have rode that decision back, but he didn’t. He doubled down on it in Parliament and elsewhere”.
Accroding to Penman, Robbins “has a choice to walk away or to challenge, and he’s made a choice to challenge, which we are supporting”.
Penman added:
“This is why it has wider implications, because there are always going to be… stories in the newspapers that prime ministers don’t like and if, essentially on a whim, they then dismiss members of the permanent civil service to save their own skin… to deflect attention, then that’s bad for the public interest. It’s bad for taxpayers because they end up having to fund the consequences of that, and it’s bad for public administration”.
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