Sir Keir Starmer pressured the Foreign Office to find an ambassadorial role for disgraced Labour peer Lord Matthew Doyle, Sir Olly Robbins has revealed.
No10 was accused of issuing “strict instructions” to the former civil servant to keep it secret from the Foreign Secretary.
Sir Olly described his situation as “uncomfortable” and said the former spin doctor was not qualified for the position.
The former Foreign Office boss also said he struggled to justify handing a senior diplomatic posting to Lord Doyle, after he was found to have campaigned for a paedophile, Sean Morton.
He claimed it risked driving experienced career diplomats out of the Foreign Office, and ultimately pushed back, telling No10 it would be “very hard for me personally to defend”.
Sir Olly recalled a call to the Foreign Office in March last year regarding an ambassadorship role for Lord Doyle, who was then Sir Keir’s director of communications.
In the same month, Lord Doyle left his position after it was claimed he informed the Prime Minister he wanted to leave.
It was then that Sir Keir was understood to have tried to find him another job.
Sir Keir Starmer pressured the Foreign Office to find an ambassadorial role for disgraced Labour peer Lord Matthew Doyle, Sir Olly Robbins has revealed
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PA
Lord Doyle was subsequently suspended from the Labour Party when it emerged that he had campaigned for former Labour councillor Morton after he had been charged with child sex offences in 2017.
It came just a month after he first appeared in the House of Lords, a peerage that Sir Keir appointed him to.
Lord Doyle ceased all contact with Morton after he was convicted of the charge.
In a statement, Lord Doyle said: “I want to apologise for my past association with Sean Morton.”
Matthew Doyle campaigned for a disgraced former Labour councillor | GETTY
The suspended Labour peer added: “His offences were vile, and I completely condemn the actions for which he was rightly convicted. My thoughts are with the victims and all those impacted by these crimes.
“At the point of my campaigning support, Morton repeatedly asserted to all those who knew him his innocence, including initially in court. He later changed his plea in court to guilty.
“To have not ceased support ahead of a judicial conclusion was a clear error of judgment, for which I apologise unreservedly.”
Shortly after Sir Olly gave his testimony, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey repeated calls for the Prime Minister to resign.
Sir Olly Robbins delivered his damning evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee this morning | PARLIAMENT TV
He said: “This is incredibly damning for Keir Starmer.
“Not content with appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite his links to Epstein, he tried to appoint another man with a known friendship with a sex offender.
“This is not just a lapse in judgement, it’s a pattern of behaviour.
“Every day this scandal gets worse, and it becomes clearer that the only way to draw a line under it is for Starmer to go.”