Former top civil servant questions Starmer over China spy trial collapse
Sir Keir Starmer’s former senior civil servant has questioned the prime minister’s account of how the case of two alleged Chinese spies collapsed.
Simon Case, who serves as the prime minister’s cabinet secretary, disputed Sir Keir’s claim that the government’s hands were tied because of the previous Conservative government’s stance on whether China was officially a threat.
Parliament’s case involving alleged Chinese spies collapsed after the government refused to brand Beijing a threat to national security, the director of prosecutions said this week.
Stephen Parkinson said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had spent “months” trying to gather the evidence it needed to prosecute, but it had not come from the Labor government.
And Sir Keir this week sought to blame the Tory administration before the trial collapsed.
“We are disappointed that the case did not proceed, but the position is very clear that it should be done on a case-by-case basis, as it was under the previous Tory government,” he said.
However, with a rare intervention, Lord Case said Telegram: “Looking back over the years, we have seen the heads of our intelligence agencies publicly describe the threat China poses to our national and economic security interests.”
The collapse of the case has raised questions about whether Britain is willing to confront China as Sir Keir’s government seeks closer ties with the country.
Luke de Pulford, chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said: Independent: “It is not credible on any level to claim that no evidence was available, so the government’s failure to provide evidence to the CPS in this case must have been due to some other reason and appears to have been motivated by a desire not to upset China.”
And former security minister Tom Tugendhat wrote: Telegram He said the only explanation for the collapse of the case was that someone in the government “made a choice” that relations with China were more important than national security.
Work and Pensions Minister Pat McFadden said on Thursday that prosecutions were “a decision for the director of public prosecutions”.
“As the Prime Minister made clear in his remarks on his visit to India, these charges were brought at one time under the last government and the evidence had to be presented in accordance with the rules at the time,” he told Sky News.
The case against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry, a former parliamentary researcher, was dropped on September 15, prompting criticism from Downing Street and other party MPs.
To prove the case under the Official Secrets Act of 1911, prosecutors had to show that the defendants were acting on behalf of an “enemy.”
This came after Mr Parkinson sent a letter to the chairs of the home affairs and justice committee explaining why the case could not proceed.
He wrote: “It was felt that more evidence should be obtained.
“Efforts to obtain this evidence took months, but although further witness statements were presented, none of them indicated that China posed a threat to national security at the time of the crime, and by late August 2025 it became clear that this evidence would not be available.
“When this situation came to light, the case could not continue.”
