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Seen through the Westminster bubble, the Peter Mandelson vetting affair looks like an age-old conflict pitting ministers against mandarins. Yet the latest top civil servant to testify to parliament over what some are now calling “Mandygate” gave an intriguing account that suggested it has never been as simple as that.

Cat Little, the top civil servant at the Cabinet Office, did not put it in these terms, but what she revealed was an extraordinary dispute between the country’s most senior civil servants.

Little cut a very different figure to Olly Robbins, her recently departed counterpart at the Foreign Office who gave evidence to the foreign affairs select committee two days earlier.

Whereas Robbins exuded civil service finesse and ease, and was perhaps somewhat freed by no longer being in post, Little at times looked genuinely pained at the situation in which she found herself: divulging the kind of facts that the British national security state would prefer remains under lock and key.

Yet in her evidence was just as revelatory, and perhaps more so, given she came armed with the most deadly of civil servant weapons: an audit trail.

It was a contrast with Robbins who, on the key question of why Mandelson was giving vetting clearance against the advice of security officials in late January 2025, was reliant on his recollections of an oral briefing that does not appear to have been fully minuted.

Little’s key revelation related to a meeting she held with Robbins just two months ago – when, she said, he refused to release to her department files related to Mandelson’s vetting decision. This happened to be the very same paperwork that revealed Robbins had been advised not to give Mandelson clearance but did so anyway.

Little was a star witness in this affair because of her position in the machinery of government. She runs the Cabinet Office, the department that houses United Kingdom Security Vetting (UKSV) – the agency that helps decide which employees should get developed vetting (and concluded that Mandelson should not).

She is also the civil servant ultimately responsible for complying with the so-called “humble address”: the parliamentary motion passed in February requiring the government to release “all papers” related to Mandelson’s appointment. Under the terms of that motion, the most sensitive documents, such as Mandelson’s UKSV file, were to be handed to parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC).

And so it was in that capacity, of gathering all the relevant materials that had to be released to the public or the ISC, that Little said she had her crucial face-to-face meeting with Robbins in the middle of March.

She had not by that stage seen Mandelson’s UKSV vetting file, and did not know that it had recommended “clearance denied”. But for complicated reasons, the Foreign Office had a copy and associated documents setting out Robbins’ decision to grant clearance anyway.

Little’s account of what happened was delivered with little drama, but it could create a real headache for Robbins. “I specifically asked to see this document and any decision-making audit trail about those judgments at the time,” she said. “It was made clear to me that that information would not be forthcoming.”

Asked who told her this, she replied: “Sir Olly.”

Then, when she was asked why Robbins would not want the information to be shared, she said: “In the actual meeting, the specific reasons were not discussed.”

Little made clear her account was based on evidence. Asked who witnessed this conversation, she replied: “Three private secretaries in attendance of the meeting, and I personally took a record of it.”

It was in the face of Robbins’ resistance, Little said, that she took the “very unusual judgment” that she needed to get the copy from UKSV itself.

Little’s evidence was not without awkward questions about her own conduct. She effectively confirmed the Guardian’s reporting that she and the Cabinet secretary, Antonia Romeo, had known about Mandelson’s vetting file but waited almost three weeks before telling the prime minister.

She acknowledged it “did take some time” to tell Starmer, but insisted there had been a process to follow, and she needed to get legal, policy and proprietary advice before being sure whom, precisely, she could reveal this state secret to. She acknowledged the Cabinet Office was “very worried” about releasing such a sensitive vetting file to the parliamentary committee.

Before concluding, Little wielded her audit trail to once again present a different version of events to Robbins about one of the enduring mysteries in the scandal so far. Why did the Foreign office ask to look at Mandelson’s vetting documents on 15 September 2025, four days after Mandelson was sacked?

Robbins had told the committee he had “considered” viewing the vetting file and there were “different views” on the matter but ultimately he had been told he could not review it without a national security justification.

Little’s paper trail told a different story. She confirmed the Foreign Office security team had requested “a number of documents relating to the vetting file” on that date. The records showed that the documents were shared with the Foreign Office that day, she said.

The obvious question: why did Robbins, or anyone else at the Foreign Office, need to see Mandelson’s vetting files after he had been sacked? Asked that question, Little replied: “I don’t recall there being a reason given.”