Wolverhampton MP McFadden says Mandelson texts were just 'back and forth' of politics

Black Country MP Pat McFadden said his text messages to disgraced peer Peter Mandelson expressing frustration at fellow Labour MPs were just the typical ‘back and forth’ between politicians, and that he never expected them to be made public.

Mr McFadden, now Work and Pensions Secretary, had told Lord Mandelson had vented his irritation that Labour MPs were ‘asking the wrong questions’ about welfare reform, telling the peer ‘Every meeting I have is ‘who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others’.

But Mr McFadden, MP for Wolverhampton South East, repeated his belief that welfare reform should be about tackling the reasons why people are on benefits rather than simply giving them more money.

He insisted he was not aware of Lord Mandelson’s connections to convicted paedophile Jeffery Epstein at the time of the exchanges last year.

Mr McFadden said: “I’ve known Peter Mandelson for many years and these messages are kind of back and forth about politics and government that go on a lot.

“Politics is a series of constant conversations and that’s what’s reflected in the material that was produced the other day.

“Of course, you write things in these messages, and I’m sure everybody does, that they probably, when they wrote them, didn’t expect them to be published.”

The messages were made public on Monday, following last month’s ‘Humble Address’ tabled by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, which required that a tranche of messages surrounding Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador should be published.

Mr McFadden, who was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster at the time, told GB News: “We need to change the question that the welfare system asks.

“What I mean by that is we need to move from a question which just asks what benefits are you entitled to, to a question that says how can we help you change your life.

“I think that is a progressive welfare reform question, because it puts work and opportunity at the heart of what you’re trying to do, I’ve been saying that in public and in private for a long time.

“I don’t think you can or should do welfare reform just by saying ‘here’s a sum of money we’ve got to save’, and then you graft on the policy afterwards.”