Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she was “very disappointed” at the collapse of a major Chinese spying case and denied there was any ministerial interference.
The case against Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry was dropped on September 15, sparking criticism from Downing Street and MPs from across both sides of the political aisle.
The Sunday Times reported the decision came after senior Whitehall mandarins met to discuss the trial, including national security adviser Jonathan Powell and the Foreign Office’s top civil servant Sir Oliver Robbins.
In order to prove the case under the Official Secrets Act, prosecutors would have had to show the defendants were acting for an “enemy” – but Mr Powell reportedly revealed the Government’s evidence would be based on the national security strategy, which does not use that term to describe China.
The Sunday Times reported this meant Matthew Collins, the deputy national security adviser due to give evidence for the prosecution, would be unable to say Beijing was an enemy.
Ms Mahmood insisted there was no Whitehall meeting to discuss the case and no ministerial involvement, although the Sunday Times report focused on the actions of officials, rather than ministers.
The Home Secretary told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “I don’t recognise that reporting about a meeting, I’m not aware of any such meeting taking place.
“It was a decision of the Crown Prosecution Service, as they have made clear themselves, an independent decision on whether to proceed with that prosecution.
“I’m very disappointed that that prosecution has not proceeded. Our understanding is that the evidence that was available to the Crown Prosecution Service when they brought the charges is not materially different to the evidence that they had just before the trial was due to get under way.
“So, I think it’s a question for the prosecution service to answer, but as the Government, the Home Office, we very much wanted to see that trial proceed.”
Asked if China was an enemy of the UK, she said: “China is a ‘challenge’, is, I think, the word that I would use.”
She said Sir Keir Starmer’s Government had a “hard-headed, realistic approach” to the Chinese state.
Mr Cash, 30, from Whitechapel, east London, and Mr Berry, 33, of Witney, Oxfordshire, had denied the allegations.
Stephen Parkinson, chief prosecutor in England and Wales, had said the CPS had determined the proceedings had to be stopped because of an “evidential failure”.
Shadow national security minister Alicia Kearns, who had previously employed Mr Cash, said: “There are serious questions about constitutional impropriety.
“Starmer must find some backbone and root out the truth. Either his ministers or his most senior advisers acted to spike the CPS’ ability to prosecute with his full knowledge, or in contempt of PM – which is it?”
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith pointed to areas such as UK universities’ reliance on the income from Chinese students to say “we are now uniquely tied to China and its brutal regime”.
“We are seen as the soft underbelly of the Western alliance,” he said.
“Small wonder Downing Street does China’s bidding in shutting down the spy prosecution.”
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp told Times Radio: “The CPS suddenly said that the evidential test was no longer met.
“I believe the Government changed their evidence or were not prepared to designate China as an enemy. That caused the case to collapse.”
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick told a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference: “I think China is an enemy of this country.
“I think it’s a real, serious threat to our values, our economic and our national security, and all decisions must flow from that.
“If someone is spying on our Parliament on behalf of China, lock them up, send them to jail for a long time.”
He said Beijing should “absolutely not” be allowed to use the Royal Mint to house its new embassy and suggested the country could turn the location into “the world’s largest Chinese spying hub”.
