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Lord Peter Mandelson is quitting the House of Lords, the Speaker of the upper chamber has announced.

The former Labour cabinet minister and UK ambassador to Washington will no longer be a peer from midnight.

Lord Forsyth, the Speaker of the House of Lords, told the chamber on Tuesday that Mandelson had given notification “of his intention to retire from the House effective from 4 February”.

Mandelson has been under pressure over revelations that he passed government documents to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, from whom he had taken $75,000.

Earlier on Tuesday, Downing Street said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had directed officials to draft legislation to remove Mandelson from parliament’s upper chamber as quickly as possible.

Mandelson, who is on a leave of absence from the Lords at present, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The FT first reported that Mandelson was set to quit.

This is a developing story