Keir Starmer was forced to promise to publish witness statements from the UK’s deputy national security adviser in an effort to draw a line under a row over why charges against two Britons accused of spying for China were dropped.
Updating MPs at the start of prime minister’s questions, Starmer said statements by Matthew Collins would be released after a “short process” amid accusations from the Conservatives that Jonathan Powell, the prime minister’s national security adviser, had restricted the evidence his deputy would give.
The Crown Prosecution Service cleared the way for the witness statement to be published late on Tuesday when it said it had no objection to its release, given that the case against Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, a teacher, was no longer live.
Charges against Cash and Berry were suddenly dropped last month because prosecutors could not obtain evidence from Collins in three successive statements that Beijing represented a “threat to the national security of the UK” over “many months” to fulfil the legal requirements of the 1911 Official Secrets Act under which they had been charged.
But though the Collins statements had been promised first about 5pm, then shortly after 7pm, they had not been released by 9pm on Wednesday. Meanwhile, there were some indications that their contents would not be as dramatic as Conservative critics of the government had hoped.
The chairs of five parliamentary committees met Stephen Parkinson, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, on Wednesday afternoon to discuss how they would scrutinise the affair. According to one account of the meeting, the director of prosecutions told them the statements prepared by Collins were “5% less than the evidence threshold that was needed” – while the CPS declined to comment.
Starmer argued that the evidence Collins submitted was based on the Conservative government’s position at the time charges were brought, because the men had been charged with offences allegedly committed between 2021 and 2023.
On Wednesday, the Conservatives accused ministers of political interference in the trial, but Starmer said at prime minister’s questions it was “absolutely not” the case and said Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the opposition, had made a “completely scurrilous allegation”.
Downing Street told reporters after the exchanges in the house that Starmer did not see the witness statements submitted by Collins on behalf of the government until Wednesday morning, and only found out about the impending collapse of the trial “a couple of days” in advance. The prime minister’s spokesperson insisted that it was not for Starmer to intervene in this scenario.
In a series of robust exchanges in the Commons, Badenoch accused Starmer of not being honest about what had happened. “The charges were brought under us, the case collapsed under them,” she said. “Can the prime minister tell us what changed and what collapsed the case?”
Starmer turned his fire on the Tories, saying that “it was their failure and they are just slinging mud”. He argued the only reason the case was withdrawn was because the previous Conservative government did not designate China as a threat to the UK.
“To be clear, had the Conservatives been quicker in updating our legislation – a review that started in 2015 – these individuals could have been prosecuted, and we would not be where we are,” he said.
Starmer added that Collins was a “civil servant of the utmost integrity” and that his witness statement had been made without political input. “Under this government, no minister or special adviser played any role in the provision of evidence,” he said.
“I can’t say what the position was of the previous government in relation to the involvement of ministers or special advisers. If the leader of the opposition knows the answer to that question, and I suspect that she does, I invite her to update the house.”
Badenoch demanded to know if there had been any discussions involving Jonathan Powell, the government’s national security adviser, and called for the release of any minutes and correspondence between the government and the CPS over the case.
“Exactly as I expected, the prime minister had to be dragged out at the top of PMQs to give a statement that answers no questions,” she said. “He had to be dragged out to repeat only more obfuscation. It is simply unbelievable that he is trying to say the last government did not classify China as a threat.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Dominic Cummings, who served as Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, had said that China had breached secure high-level systems involving Strap, a government classification for highly sensitive intelligence material, and this had not been made public – but this was denied by former senior cybersecurity officials working in Whitehall and the Cabinet Office within hours.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “It is untrue to claim that the systems we use to transfer the most sensitive government information have been compromised.” Sources indicated there had been concern with a datacentre company that had provided some less sensitive government communications.”
On Thursday, Ken McCallum, the head of the domestic security service MI5, is expected to spell out the threats posed by China in an annual security update. Whitehall insiders are frustrated by the failure to prosecute Cash and Berry and reiterate that they stand by a string of previous warnings they have made about Chinese hacking and industrial espionage.
