Minister responding to Commons urgent question on China spy case witness statements – UK politics live | Politics
Government to respond to Commons urgent question on China spy case witness statements at 10.30am
The Commons authorities have announced that there will be an urgent question on the China spy case at 10.30am.
The Conservative MP Neil O’Brien has tabled the question, asking for a statement “on the three witness statements in relation to alleged breach of Official Secrets Act on behalf of China”. A minister will reply.
Key events
Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, says as a lawyer she cannot understand why the CPS did not go ahead and put this case to a jury.
In his response to O’Brien, Ward said that the Tories were at the same time accusing the government of improperly intervening in the prosecution process (to discourage prosection) – while at the same time saying the government should have intervened to ensure the prosecution went ahead.
Tory MP Neil O’Brien claims witness statements show threat from China was made ‘less clear’ under Labour
Neil O’Brien said he was shocked to hear yesterday that the PM knew two days in advance that the prosecution was going to be dropped, but did nothing.
He said the government had to explain why it did not give the CPS the extra 5% it needed.
And he said the witness statements showed that Labour policy was included in the submission. These additions made it ‘‘less clear” that China was a threat, he said.
He called for the publication of all the documents relevant to this case.
He asks what the government has got to hide.
Ward says the witness statements show that the evidence submitted by the deputy national security adviser “does not change materially throughout”.
He says the DNSA took “significant strides” to give the CPS what it needed.
Ward says that “no minister or special adviser played any role in the provision of evidence” under this government. He says he cannot say if that was the case under the last government.
There is a lot of jeering at this. The Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, reprimands Tom Tugendhat for his interruption.
Ward starts by saying this is serious. And he accepts this is personal to Neil O’Brien, the Tory MP who tabled the question. O’Brien has been sanctioned by China and is named in the witness documents.
Minister replies to urgent question on witness statements published relating to China spy case
Chris Ward, a junior Cabinet Office minister, is replying now to the urgent question on the China spy case.
The Conservative MP Nick Timothy has posted a thread on social media with some of the questions he claims are raised by the three China witness statements. His first one is::
1. Why did Matt Collins insert positive language about the relationship with China in the Labour government’s evidence, but not the Tory evidence?
What current DPP Stephen Parkinson previously said about Starmer’s record as DPP
Keir Starmer was director of public prosecutions (DPP) before he entered politics, and therefore you might expect him to have some solidarity with Stephen Parkinson, the current DPP, who is today being challenged by ministers to explain why he dropped the China spy prosecution. (See 9.56am.)
But maybe not. In 2023, before he took up the post of DPP, Parkinson described Starmer as “an average DPP”, saying: “He had no in-depth experience of prosecuting . . .he was a defence and human rights lawyer.”
He also said he disapproved of barristers without significant prosecution experience (like Starmer, who had mostly been a defence barrister), being appointed to the post.
The last two directors have had no significant prosecution background at all before their appointment. Yet the core of CPS work is decision-making on which cases to prosecute, and subsequent pre-trial preparation.
Ex-cyber security chief says Dominic Cummings’ claim about China compromising UK’s biggest secrets ‘categorically untrue’
In a separate China develoment, a former cyber security chief has strongly denied a claim made by Dominic Cummings yesterday about the extent of Chinese infiltration of UK intelligence.
In an interview with the Times yesterday, Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, recalled a meeting in No 10 when he and the then PM were told about a Chinese hack that led to extremely secret information being compromised.
Cummings said:
What I’m saying is that some Strap stuff [Strap means material categorised as highly sensitive] was compromised and vast amounts of data classified as extremely secret and extremely dangerous for any foreign entity to control was compromised.
Material from intelligence services. Material from the National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. Things the government has to keep secret. If they’re not secret, then there are very, very serious implications for it.
In response, the Cabinet Office said:
It is untrue to claim that the systems we use to transfer the most sensitive government information have been compromised.
Ciaran Martin, who was head of the National Cyber Security Centre at the time, issued a much longer statement saying Cummings’ story was wrong. Martin said China did pose a cyber threat to the UK and that many cyber attacks had taken place. But he said the networks used for the most secret material had not been compromised as Cumming claimed. He said:
It is categorically untrue that in 2020 briefings were given to the effect that the Chinese state had compromised the bespoke systems used for circulating Strap and other highly classified state secrets.
Both the cabinet secretaries who served in 2020 have confirmed to me that: (i) they were unaware of ever receiving any briefing about Chinese state compromise of the classified IT systems used for the Government’s most sensitive information;
(ii) they did not brief the then prime minister or his chief adviser to that effect. It would have fallen to the National Cyber Security Centre to support the cabinet secretary in a breach of the kind alleged. There was no such NCSC operation in 2020 or the preceding years.
Minister says DPP must explain why CPS thought China spy evidence was ‘5% less’ than needed
Stephen Kinnock, the care minister, was the government spokesperson on the media this morning. As Eleni Courea reports, asked about the China spy case witness statements, he said it was up to the CPS to explain why the prosecution was dropped. He told Sky News:
I believe the DPP [Stephen Parkinson, who as director of public prosecutions is head of the CPS] told MPs yesterday that he felt the evidence was 95% of the way there, but there was a 5% gap that was missing. I think he’s the best person to explain what that 5% that was missing was.
The full story from Eleni is here.
Christopher Cash says he’s ‘completely innocent’ and issues statement rebutting China spy claims made about him
Christopher Cash, one of the two men accused of spying for China, but not prosecuted because the CPS dropped the case, issued a lengthy statement last night following the publication of the three government witness statements supporting the case against him.
He said, again, that he was “completely innocent” and that he had been put in an “impossible situation” because, with his trial cancelled, he did not have the chance to prove his innocence to the public.
He went on:
For the avoidance of any doubt, I routinely spoke and shared information with Christopher Berry about Chinese and British politics. He was my friend and these were matters we were both passionately interested in. I believed him to be as critical of and concerned about the Chinese Communist Party as I was. I believed him to be a source of useful information, as he lived in China. That information would have been used to the benefit of the UK. It was inconceivable to me that he would deliberately pass on any information to Chinese intelligence, even if that information was not sensitive. Mr Berry told me that he was working for a strategic advisory company in China, and that he was helping clients trade and invest in the UK. A small amount of the information I gave to him was provided in that context. However, this was all either information that was publicly available, information I was already encouraged to share with journalists as a routine part of my job or was just political gossip that formed part of the everyday Westminster rumour mill. I was entirely open about my relationship with Mr Berry. I did not ever receive money for information which I provided.
I cannot emphasise my position strongly enough. I have lost a career I loved for an allegation against me of which I am entirely innocent.
Government to respond to Commons urgent question on China spy case witness statements at 10.30am
The Commons authorities have announced that there will be an urgent question on the China spy case at 10.30am.
The Conservative MP Neil O’Brien has tabled the question, asking for a statement “on the three witness statements in relation to alleged breach of Official Secrets Act on behalf of China”. A minister will reply.
Starmer and CPS face further questions after China spy case documents fail to quell controversy
Good morning. Late last night No 10 finally released the three witness statements written by Matthew Collins, the deputy national security adviser, for the Crown Prosecution Service to assist its prosection of the two men alleged to have been spying on behalf of China.
The first document is here. At 12 pages, it is the longest, it was written in December 2023, and it sets out in detail the case against the two accused. Collins admits that none of the material passed on was “protectively marked” (ie, officially classified as secret), and the document makes it clear that the spying allegations (that the two accused have always denied) are not remotely in the Philby, Burgess and Maclean category. But Collins says their alleged activities were “prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK”.
The second document is here. It is dated February 2024, but apparently that is a mistake and it was submitted in February this year. It runs to three pages and it gives more information about the Chinese threat to the UK, and the identity of the senior CCP (Chinese communist party) who was allegedly the ultimate recipient of the information.
And the final statement is here. It was submitted in August this year and it sets out the government assessment of the threat posed by China, mostly quoting from reports published by the last government (in power when the alleged offences were committed), but with a final paragraph that sets out the Labour government’s view on China. It describes the policy using language from Labour’s manifesto.
The Labour manifesto said: “We will co-operate where we can, compete where we need to, and challenge where we must.” In his statement Collins has added “including on issues of national security” to the “challenge” clause at the end.
The Tories are alleging that ministers and officials deliberately intervened to get the CPS to drop the prosecution – either by leaning on the CPS, or by withholding from them the evidence they needed. There is no evidence at all to support the first theory (Keir Starmer’s denial on this point at PMQs yesterday was forceful), and the government is also dismissing the second theory too. It is said that Collins believed his witness statements were strong enough to allow a prosecution to go ahead.
But Kemi Badenoch has cited the final paragraph of Collins’ final witness statement as evidence that her claims are right. In a statement, she said:
Yesterday the prime minister insisted that the deputy national security adviser’s witness statements reflected the last Conservative government’s policy towards China.
Now we discover that a witness statement sent under this Labour government included language describing the current government’s policy towards China, which was directly lifted from the Labour party manifesto. Did an official, adviser or minister suggest that this should be included?
The government’s story is falling apart under scrutiny, and the only thing that is clear is that the prime minister knew the spy case was collapsing but did not act.
In truth, the witness statements published last night raise more questions for the Crown Prosecution Service than they do for the government. Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions (ie, head of the CPS), met senior MPs last night and, according to a report by ITV’s Robert Peston, they were not convinced by his claim that the government evidence was “5% less” than needed to reach the evidence threshold for the case to go ahead. Peston says:
I am told that the director of public prosecutions Stephen Parkinson has just told some of parliament’s most senior MPs – chairs of home, justice, foreign and security committees – that the evidence provided by the government’s witness in the China spy case, the deputy national security adviser, was “5% less than the evidence threshold that was needed.”
Parkinson told the MPs that the deputy national security adviser, Matthew Collins, had made it clear to the Crown Prosecution Service he was not going to provide the additional 5%. Which is why Parkinson canned the case. And as I said earlier, he informed the Attorney General Hermer of his decision to kibosh the prosecution.
The MPs were surprised by what Parkinson told them, to put it mildly. They asked why Parkinson did not get a second expert witness, to fill in the small gap left by Collins. The DPP in essence said that is not the way the CPS operates.
Last night Dominic Grieve, who was a Conservative attorney general under David Cameron but who has now left the Tories (over Brexit) and who has no interest helping Badenoch’s Labour-bashing over this, told Radio 4’s The World Tonight that, having read the witness statements, he was “mystified” why the prosecution did not go ahead. He said:
I am a bit mystified, having read the statements, as to what the issue [that blocked the prosecution] actually is.
Although the first statement dwelt particularly on what it was alleged the two individuals had done, the later ones did set out pretty fully what I recollect was the then government’s position on China – ‘epoch-defining and systemic challenge, with implications for almost every area of government policy and the lives of the British people’.
So it didn’t mince words about the Chinese threat. It goes into considerable detail about how that threat had manifested itself.
It is also right, however, that nowhere does it say a threat to our national security. It says a threat to our security of one point, but not to our national security.
And that leaves me extremely puzzled. I am puzzled as to why, in the light of the case which further defined the word enemy, it was felt in those circumstances this prosecution couldn’t proceed … When you read the totality of these statements, you could be left in absolutely no doubt that China was a threat to our national security.
There will be a lot more on this as the day goes on. Opposition MPs are likely to push for an urgent question in the Commons.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Martin Hewitt, head of border control at the Home Office, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee about the work of Border Security Command.
09.30am: Quarterly homelessness figures are published.
Morning: Keir Starmer is on a visit in London where he is likely to speak to the media.
Morning: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in Chelmsford where she is likely to speak to the media.
11am: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, gives a speech to Confederation of School Trusts conference.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
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