Downing Street said the Prime Minister does not have the power to strip Lord Mandelson of his peerage.
Sir Keir Starmer believes Lord Mandelson should no longer sit in Parliament following further revelations about the peer’s links to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Downing Street said Sir Keir believed the former ambassador to the US “should not be a member of the House of Lords or use the title”, but the Prime Minister does not have the power to strip him of his peerage.
The country’s top civil servant has also been tasked with urgently reviewing information on links between Lord Mandelson and Epstein while he was a Government minister.
In an email exchange from 2009, Lord Mandelson, then the business secretary, appeared to tell Epstein he would lobby ministers over a tax on bankers’ bonuses.
The emails released by the US Department of Justice also show Epstein was sent internal discussions from the heart of the UK Government in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
Bank statements from 2003 and 2004 appeared to show he received payments totalling 75,000 US dollars (£54,735) from the financier.
Epstein is also said to have paid for an osteopathy course for Lord Mandelson’s husband.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “The Prime Minister believes that Peter Mandelson should not be a member of the House of Lords or use the title. However, the Prime Minister does not have the power to remove it.”
Sir Keir urged the Lords to work with the Government to modernise disciplinary procedures to make it easier to remove disgraced peers.
Under the current arrangements, a new law would be required to remove a peerage, something that last happened more than 100 years ago to deal with members of the nobility who sided with the Germans in the First World War.
Downing Street said the Prime Minister has also asked Cabinet Secretary Sir Chris Wormald to review “all available information regarding Peter Mandelson’s contacts with Jeffrey Epstein during his period as a Government minister”.
Lord Mandelson resigned his Labour membership late on Sunday night and the party has said he was facing disciplinary action.
