Files on Andrew's appointment as UK trade envoy released

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-22

[00:00:01]Breaking news to bring you now, documents relating to the appointment of the former Prince Andrew as Britain's trade envoy have just been released. He served in that job between 2001 and 2011. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor stepping back from the role as scrutiny increased over his association with the late Peter Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew continues to deny any wrongdoing. Well, looking through the files is our deputy political editor Sam Coates. Sam, what we're learning? So, this is the 31-page document that's just been released by government. Under duress, they were forced to do it by MPs. And it is the background to how Prince Andrew, as he was then, would have been appointed in a role as trade envoy to the government.

[00:00:44]Now, this was the Blair government back in 2000. And what we discover, you can see the contents page there of all the different letters and memos that went back and forth in government. And there are two big headlines, Gareth, I want to bring you this out from the from these documents. Uh the first makes it absolutely explicit here that Prince Andrew's appointment was the wish of the Queen. So, if you look here on the screen, you can see the Queen's wish is that the Duke of Kent should be succeeded in his role by the Duke of York. The Duke of Kent is to relinquish his responsibilities around April of next year. This was written in 2000. And this would fit well with the end of the Duke of York's active naval career. The Queen is very keen that the Duke of York should take on a prominent role in the promotion of national interests. No other member of the royal family would be available.

[00:01:39]What's the significance of that? Well, it shows you. It tells you that Queen Elizabeth, the late Queen, was intimately involved in the decision to appoint Prince Andrew, as he was then, to the role of government trade envoy. He was the pick. She wanted him effectively.

[00:01:55]She looked like she was going to boost his profile. Now, there is one other thing in the last few minutes that we've come across and I think this speaks a little bit to some of Prince Andrew's character and so I want you just to bear with me. There is a report of a senior official who went to go and see the private secretary of Prince Andrew. So, as it were, the lead official in Prince Andrew's office and you can see in this that quite a lot of of the discussion was about quite how it should work. And let me just get the right page up here. There we go.

[00:02:32]I'll read it to you from from the from the book. Essentially, what there was is there there was a negotiation over exactly what Prince Andrew would be allowed to do on the royal trips and the trade trips that he was going to do compared to the military trips that he was still doing in in his role of in his role as a member of the Royal Navy. And it says that the lead official in Prince Andrew's office, and I'm quoting now, particularly asked that the Duke of York should not be allowed and not be offered golfing functions abroad.

[00:03:07]This was a private activity and if he took his clubs with him, he would not play in any public sense. So, what you have there, I think, and you can see it now on the screen, is is extraordinary. We're just at the opening stages of discussing the Prince Andrew appointment. And there is a warning from Captain Blair, head of his office that you can see there, and there you've got the words up on the screen that the Duke of York should not be offered golfing functions abroad.

[00:03:35]This was a private activity and if he took his clubs with him, he would not play in any public sense. I mean, that really stands out to me that already there was concern about how Prince Andrew might use his role working for the government to his own personal advantage. Some might say it's only a small thing, but the fact that his own side, the prince's own officials, were issuing warnings about his behavior, well, I think that's just quite an interesting marker, uh and some would say a harbinger of some things to come. We'll keep going through the 31-page uh releases. There's going to be lots of documents in the weeks and months to come also connected connected with uh Peter Mandelson. Uh so, we'll keep pouring through them.

[00:04:15]The documents being released, Sam, like you say, also will we expecting more.

[00:04:19]Just remind viewers of kind of the the wider situation regarding uh Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the files, the government, the investigations, etc. If we were to take a step back, where do these documents fit into the wider picture? Over the last few months, there have been all sorts of votes in Parliament to force the disclosure of documents connected to figures who knew Jeffrey Epstein over the last 25 years.

[00:04:44]And in Britain, that has focused around two figures, Prince Andrew, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor as he now is, and Peter Mandelson, Lord Mandelson, the ill-fated ambassador uh who was forced to step down last year. Now, this is the tranche of documents relating to the appointment of Prince Andrew. We've had one tranche of documents relating uh to Lord Mandelson, but we've got a massive second tranche of documents coming in the coming weeks, probably at some point in June. We're told that this runs to many thousands of pages, bigger than the Chilcot report, according to a government minister earlier uh this week. Uh those will contain all sorts of intricacies, all sorts of emails and WhatsApps between figures in government, highly sensitive, highly unusual, and I keep being told by people inside government potentially highly damaging.

[00:05:33]At first glance, the 31 pages that we've had today don't look particularly revelatory about Prince Andrew. We'll keep pouring through these, but documents on screens like this that you're going to see in the coming weeks, they really are, I'm told, going to be explosive.

[00:05:48]Sam Coates, we'll let you go through those documents. We'll come back to you when there's more. Thank you so much.

[00:05:52]Appreciate it.