PETER Mandelson has badly let down the country and he must be held to account for his “outrageous” conduct and “terrible betrayal”, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said.

Asked if he regretted his association with Mandelson, he told GB News: “Yes. What we’ve seen in the last few days with the release of the latest tranche of Epstein files is a terrible betrayal.

“It’s a betrayal of two prime ministers who were badly let down by Peter Mandelson, it’s a terrible betrayal of our country and its national interest with the leaking of highly sensitive, in some cases market sensitive, information to outsiders, but fundamentally, it’s a betrayal of our values as well.

“Public service is meant to be precisely that, public service, not self service. And what lots of us have struggled with for some time since the previous release of Epstein documents, is how, given Epstein’s conviction, he continued to be associated with someone who was a convicted pedophile.

“I don’t think it gets more serious than that, and quite rightly, there is now a focus on his conduct as a government minister, and what he was sharing with whom, when and with what consequences.

“But in all of this, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the biggest victims in all of this, and the people who have the right to be most angry are Epstein’s victims, those women and girls who were not believed by people in positions of power and authority, who badly let them down.

“And so we all feel this deep anger at his conduct and how badly he has let all of us down and let the country down.”

He added: “I don’t think it was common knowledge. And when Peter Mandelson was appointed as the US ambassador, there was a vetting process, and he was asked questions about the Epstein relationship and I do not believe for a second that in that process he could have shared all of the information that since come to light, because if he had have done, he would never been appointed.

“And how do I know that for certain? Because the moment details began to emerge, his feet didn’t touch the ground because the Prime Minister phoned him, had him phoned in the middle of the night and recalled to London and sacked as our ambassador.

“So be it no doubt about how seriously the Prime Minister has taken this and how badly let down he feels, just as I’m in no doubt, given what he said publicly and the action he’s urged that Gordon Brown is also furious, because at a time when Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling were working around the clock to get this country and get the world through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, a member of their own team was forwarding internal discussions, extremely sensitive information, market sensitive information, to Jeffrey Epstein

“In terms of conduct of government ministers. It doesn’t get more serious than that, and I’m obviously not going to comment on a live police investigation, but what I will say as a serving cabinet minister is I don’t need a copy of the ministerial code in front of me, and I don’t need a copy of the law of the land in front of me to know that what Peter Mandelson did was outrageous in terms of his conduct and judgement, and that is why he absolutely must be held to account and face all of the penalties necessary for this type of action.”