PRESS ASSOCIATION -- Former Labour cabinet minister Lord Mandelson is reported to have made an offer to buy an £8 million house.
The Mail on Sunday said the former business secretary was planning to buy the Grade II listed building in "one of London's most exclusive districts".
The property is described as a four-storey Gothic revival house, featuring a wine cellar and a two-storey atrium, which once served as an almshouse.
A previous property deal famously cost Lord Mandelson him his first cabinet post in 1998 when it was revealed he bought a house in Notting Hill with the help of an undisclosed £373,000 loan from the then paymaster general Geoffrey Robinson.
Tory MP Richard Bacon said his proposed purchase now of such a lavish property little over a year after leaving government was "a matter of considerable public interest".
"As a cabinet minister Lord Mandelson earned a decent wage and more when he was at the European Commission," he told the Mail on Sunday.
"But it is a matter of considerable public interest how he can afford such an expensive home within barely a year of leaving government."
A spokesman for Lord Mandelson said in a statement: "No house purchase has been completed, but were it to take place it would be funded by a loan from a bank on normal commercial terms."