Afternoon summary
For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.
Zack Polanski says he would welcome Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana joining Green party
Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has said he would welcome Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana joining his party.
Corbyn and Sultana are launching their own leftwing party, provisionally called Your Party. But, in an interview for the News Agents podcast, asked if he would welcome them into his party, he replied:
Yes, absolutely. I need to caveat that it’s not my decision. That’s up to the party.
Polanski said he did not think the Greens needed defections from MPs because, he said, the party has “clearly got the energy and momentum anyway”. This week its membership passed 100,000 for the first time.
But, when asked if he was talking to Labour MPs who might want to defect, he claimed he was.
The Greens are also celebrating a Find Out Now poll that puts them level pegging with Labour, with both parties on 15% (behind the Conservatives on 17% and Reform UK on 32%).
(On Bluesky Sam Freedman has a good thread explaining why Reform and the Greens do particularly well in Find Out Now polls because of the methodology the firm uses.)
Polanski is leader of the Green party of England and Wales. Today the Scottish Greens said their membership has risen by 10% in the last six months, taking it to 8,279, its highest level since 2016.
A reader asks:
Do you know if evidence to the Covid enquiry is given under oath? I would pay good money to see that inveterate liar perjure himself.
Yes, evidence to the Covid inquiry is given on oath.
Thornberry says DPP failed to give convincing explanation as to why spy prosecution dropped in private meeting with MPs
Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, was one of the select committee chairs who attended a meeting with Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, about the China spy case yesterday. She said, even after listening to Parkinson’s explanation, she was still “bewildered” as to why the CPS dropped the case.
Parkinson told the MPs that the CPS was 5% short of the evidence it needed. Thornberry said that, when the MPs asked him if the government knew about this problem, he replied: “Well, they must have known because we kept asking for it.”
She told the programme that, if the problem was persuading a jury that China was a threat to national interest, the CPS should just have put the evidence to a court. She said she was “quite sure” a jury would have accepted China was a threat.
She went on:
If the stumbling block was really, was China a threat to national security, a) I don’t understand why the DPP thought that he had any problem proving that and b) I can’ see that the jury would have had any problem deciding that China was a threat. I really understand why they were being so pusillanimous about it.
Asked to confirm she wasn’t impressed by Parkinson, she said she “really wasn’t impressed by the reasons that they gave us”.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, has accused the government of including “a lovely statement about how great China was” in its evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service for the spy trial that was shelved.
Speaking to reporters today about the witness statements released last night (see 9.04am), she said:
They should have provided the evidence to the CPS that showed that China was a threat. We had loads of evidence. We’ve made repeated statements about that.
There are examples that they could have pointed to about China hacking into Whitehall government systems. They did not provide any of that.
Instead, what they provided was a lovely statement about how great China was. That’s an embarrassment.
This statement is so misleading as to make one wonder whether Badenoch has even read the witness statements. The second and third include explicit references to government and official computer systems being hacked by the Chinese. And, although those documents both refer to the UK wanting a “positive” economic relationship with China, there is nothing in them that could be described as “lovely” praise for China.
Bridget Phillipson says education can help children at risk from 'darker forces' online ripping communities apart
Richard Adams is the Guardian’s education editor.
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is warning that “forgotten” children are vulnerable to “darker forces” pushing poison online and ripping apart communities unless they can be given greater hope through education.
Phillipson told a conference that England’s school system was failing too many children, including those from disadvantaged families, with special needs or the bright but bored, leaving many of them “adrift, disconnected from success, disengaged from school”. In her speech Phillipson said:
They feel forgotten. You’ll know who I mean. The boy who skulks through your corridors, when he turns up for school at all. You’ll recognise the slouching sense of dejection. He sees the path to a good life narrowing by the day.
That boy’s spending night after night alone in his bedroom. Vulnerable to the darker forces that seek him out online, and whisper poison in his ear
Turning him away from the free and fair society we seek to build. Video by video. Reel by reel. Meme by meme.
This is how the fabric of our communities begins to rip. Bit by bit. Because when that young person is offered not opportunity but excuses. He feels not supported but betrayed. He turns not to aspiration but anger.
Speaking to journalists at the Confederation of School Trusts conference in Birmingham, Phillipson added:
If young people are disengaged from education, and spending all of their time [online] being pumped extremist material, or material that’s likely to radicalise, then we know the antidote is that school is an important protective factor against that.
If they’re in school, they are regularly getting support from staff but also developing the skills that they need to really challenge what they see, to think critically about what’s in front of them.
Disengagement from education and how that is connected to accessing material online is causing tension in our communities, and it’s something that we have to address.
Full text of Starmer's response to Badenoch over China spy case
Here is Keir Starmer’s response to Kemi Badenoch’s letter about the China spy case in full. (See 1.32pm.) He claims her version was full of “inaccuracies and misleading assertions”.
Boris Johnson to give evidence to Covid inquiry next Tuesday
Boris Johnson, the former PM, will give evidence to the Covid inquiry next week, it has been announced. He will be appearing on Tuesday morning, in one of the hearings for the inquiry module looking at the impact of the pandemic on children and young people. It will the first time he has given evidence in person since a two-day witness session in December 2023, focusing on decision making and governance.
Matthew Scott, a criminal barrister and legal blogger, is a rare voice speaking up for the CPS today. In a series of posts on social media, he argues that it was understandable why it did not want to try persuading a jury that China was an enemy when the government itself won’t use that language.
In defence of the CPS: the issue for the jury is whether China is an “enemy.” 3 witness statements saying it’s a threat to national security etc. None of the 3 use the word “enemy.”
Why not? It looks like a deliberate avoidance x3 of the word. If the government witness refuses to call China an “enemy,” I can see why the CPS may’ve thought it was likely that a jury would have refused to do so too.
At the very least it’s a point for a defence closing speech: “Members of the jury, even the prosecution witnesses refused 3 times to call China an “enemy.” And yet even though their own witnesses refuse to use that word, they are saying you must do so.”
Starmer says Badenoch 'plainly wrong' to imply last Tory government treated China as enemy
In his reply to Kemi Badenoch, Keir Starmer also said it was “simply untrue” to says that Jonathan Powell, the national security adviser, intervened in the prosecution to say China could not be described as a threat. This claim has been widely made on the back of a Sunday Times report about Powell discussing the case at meeting in early September.
Starmer said:
There have been various reports alleging that, in a meeting in September, the national security adviser ruled that China could not be defined as a threat and took decisions relating to witnesses or evidence. That is simply untrue.
Starmer said Powell took part in routine discussions based on the assumption the case was going ahead. Powell was not involved in any decisions about evidence in the case, Starmer said.
He also said that Badenoch was “plainly wrong” when she implied that the last Conservative government had treated China as an enemy. He said:
To impliedly assert, as you do, that between 2021 and 2023 the policy of the then government was to treat China as an enemy within the meaning of the 1911 Act is plainly wrong.
MI5 chief ‘frustrated’ at failure to put men accused of spying for China on trial
Ken McCallum, the MI5 director general, has acknowledged his frustration at the failure to put on trial two Britons who had been accused of spying for China, in an apparent rebuke to prosecutors who dropped the high-profile case last month. Dan Sabbagh has the story.
Starmer defends his national security officials over China affair, saying he won't stand for them being 'unfairly blamed'
At the start of the week, Kemi Badenoch wrote an open letter to Keir Starmer containing six questions about the China spy affair.
In a reply to the Tory leader, Keir Starmer has restated his assertion that ministers and special advisers did not put pressure on witnesses, or seek to influence the trial.
He also said he would not stand for anyone being “unfairly blamed” – a comment aimed at attacks on Jonathan Powell, the national security adviser, and Matthew Collins, the deputy national security adviser.
He said:
I can confirm that no minister or special adviser of this government placed any pressure on any witness that the CPS intended to call to trial, nor did they seek to influence the outcome of the trial in any other way.
Let me also say that I will not stand for anyone being unfairly blamed for this outcome.
I am confident that the deputy national security adviser, Matt Collins – a public servant of the highest calibre and integrity, who has made a significant impact on our national security – did everything possible within the constraints imposed by the previous government’s position on China.
Furthermore, the witness statements that we have now published show that the evidence he provided was in line with the then government’s publicly stated policy at the time.
Parliament’s joint committee on the national security strategy has now issued a statemetn confirming that it will hold an inquiry into the China spy case. (See 10.55am.) The committee includes the chairs of the foreign affairs, home affairs, justice, defence, international development, business and energy committees.
Matt Western, the committee chair, said:
Clearly there are still many questions yet to be answered by the government and the director of public prosecutions.
As the committee that scrutinises processes for national security decision-making, the JCNSS is the best forum for those questions.
We will be holding a formal inquiry as soon as we can and expect to hear evidence from the government and officials involved in these issues.
Hospice leaders welcome £80m funding for children's hospices in England
An £80m boost for children’s hospices is a “significant first step” towards getting hospices on a stable footing, hospice leaders have said. As PA Media reports, the government has announced the new funding for children’s hospices in England, to be spread over three years.
Toby Porter, chief executive of Hospice UK, said:
This is a welcome and significant first step to placing the children’s hospice sector on a sustainable footing. The stability provided by a multi-year settlement will have a real impact on the care children’s hospices provide and the families they support.
No 10 says Badenoch's claim PM should have intervened to stop China spy trial collapsing 'absurd'
Downing Street has described Kemi Badenoch’s claim that he should have intervened in the China spy case to stop the prosecution collapsing as “absurd”.
Badenoch first made this argument yesterday, after No 10 said Keir Starmer was told the CPS was dropping the case two days before that was announced, and she repeated the claim today. (See 9.04am.)
Asked about Badenoch’s assertion at the No 10 lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson said:
The suggestion that the prime minister should have stepped in at this point is frankly absurd.
If he was to do so he would have been interfering in a case related to a previous government, a previous policy, previous legislation.
In a criminal matter it is the CPS and the DPP that, quite rightly, have independent responsibility for prosecuting cases in this country.
Reform UK accused of sowing division in Caerphilly byelection debate, as poll suggests Labour support has collapsed
Reform UK has been accused of sowing division over immigration in the south Welsh valleys constituency of Caerphilly before next week’s crucial Senedd byelection, Steven Morris reports.
As Steven reports, Caerphilly has always been a Labour seat, in Westminster and Senedd elections. In the Senedd election in 2021, Labour was ahead of Plaid Cymru by 46% to 28%.
But a Survation poll out today suggests that the Labour vote has collapsed, and that it is now a contest between Reform UK and Plaid – with Reform UK just ahead.
Commenting on the findings, Damian Lyons Lowe, Survation’s chief executive, said:
Welsh politics is on the cusp of an unprecedented transformation. The Labour and Conservative parties previously took a combined 63% of Caerphilly’s Senedd vote in 2021 -our polling indicates this may have plummeted to just 16% as both have seen an extreme fragmentation of their vote to both Reform and Plaid.
While Labour’s 100-year long unbeaten record in Caerphilly’s Senedd and Westminster elections is highly likely to be coming to an end, this type of result being replicated nationally will also see the end of over twenty years of Labour Welsh government dominance, with Reform or Plaid the likely party of power in 2026.
This Survation chart indicates how voting behaviour has changed in Caerphilly since 2021.
Survation surveyed 501 Caerphilly residents betweeen 7 and 14 October.
Updated
One of the best legal commentators on the China spy case affair has been Mark Elliott, professor of public law at Cambridge University, who has beeen writing about this on his Public Law for Everyone blog. In his latest post, written after the publication of the three witness statements, he lists six outsanding questions for the government and the CPS.
And here is his conclusion.
Points advanced about the independence of witnesses in the context of live cases are a distraction from the distinct but related fact that in this case, the witness statements in part concerned matters of government position and policy that … ought to be for ministers. In such a context, a distinction must be drawn between the independence of the witness in terms of the statement itself and the process of determining relevant issues of position and policy that are described in the witness statement. The question therefore remains: If ministers, and the national security adviser, were wholly uninvolved in this process, why were they uninvolved, given that the process of producing these witness statements entailed, in part, making determinations about and representing matters of government position and policy for which ministers, not officials, are constitutionally responsible?
Starmer accuses some universities, including Oxford, of being 'too slow' to tacke antisemitism
Keir Starmer has been speaking this morning at an event hosted by the Community Security Trust, which organises security for the Jewish community in the UK, particularly around synagogues. He does not seem to have said anything yet about the China spying case, but he made some comments relating to antisemitism.
Starmer announced that Lord Mann, the government’s independent antisemitism adviser, will conduct a review looking at antisemitism in the NHS. He said:
Lord Mann is going to do a review of the NHS for us. Because you will know, and I know, there are just too many examples, clear examples, of antisemitism that have not been dealt with adequately or effectively.
So we need to do that review. We’ve already put in place management training in relation to the NHS, but I think we need a wider review, because in some cases, clear cases are simply not being dealt with, and so we need to get to the root of that.
Starmer said some universities, including Oxford, has been “too slow” in dealing with antisemitism. Referring to a recent case involving a student who has been arrested, Starmer said:
[Universities] should not be a place where Jewish students fear even to go, in some cases not wanting to go to university to have the education that they’re entitled to, or if they do go are concerned about their identity, how they’re going to be dealt with and reacted to. We have to stand up to that. And some universities have been too slow.
Look at Oxford this week. That was a slow reaction to the clearest of clear cases.
I won’t say any more than that, because obviously there are proceedings in place now.
He confirmed the government was giving a further £10m to the Community Security Trust for Jewish security.
Tugendhat claims China spy case shows 'bureaucrats in charge of everything' under Labour, with democracy sidelined
Tom Tugendhat, the Tory former security minister, and another target of the alleged spying operation, also raised a point of order at the end of the statement. He said:
Given that the government’s position is that the bureaucrats run the government, the bureaucrats are in charge of everything, may we dissolve this house and save the taxpayer the money? Because clearly, this isn’t a democracy any more.
Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, replied: “I’m sure [Tugendhat] doesn’t want to give up his seat quite so quickly.”
Tory MP Alicia Kearns asks why China has not faced any repercussions from UK over spying case
At the end of the statement Alicia Kearns, the Tory MP who was one of the targets of the alleged spying operation (she employed Christopher Cash – see 9.39am), used a point of order to complain about the government’s failure to address some questions.
She said she wanted proof that, over a period of 14 months, the deputy national security adviser (DSNA) at no point spoke to ministers or the national security adviser about the case.
She asked why, when told the case was about to collapse, the PM did nothing.
And she asked why “to this day there have been no repercussions for the Chinese Communist party despite the government in power having every tool in their box to make clear that we will protect this house, this democracy and this country”.
Updated
Asked why Dan Jarvis, the security minister, told MPs on Monday that Jonathan Powell, the PM’s national security adviser, was not linked to the pro-China 48 Group, when until recently he was listed on its website as a fellow, Ward said Powell “was not involved in any part of this”.
Updated
Kieran Mullan (Con) asked why wording from the Labour manifesto was included in the final witness statement.
Ward said that was there to provide “wider context”. But that wording was provided by the DNSA, without involvement from ministers or political advisers.
Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, asked if the government regards China as a national security threat.
Ward said the evidence shows that China poses a threat multiple times.
Nick Timothy (Con) said the PM claimed that the relevant evidence related to the last government’s China policy. But the evidence was changed to reflect the current govermnment’s policy. He said this showed what the PM told MPs was wrong.
Ward rejected that. He said there was no political intererence in the evidence.
Richard Foord (Lib Dem) asked why the government did not request sight of the DNSA’s witness statements. He accused the government of delegating responsibility and accountability to a civil servant.
Ward said the DNSA did set out the threat posed by China.
Bernard Jenkin (Con) said it was “beyond belief” that nobody was able to tell the deputy national security adviser that he needed to give the CPS the evidence it needed. He went on:
One can only conclude that this conspiracy of omission was something the government wanted, because they didn’t want this trial to go ahead.
Ward rejected this argument.
'Who the hell's side are you on?' - Tom Tugendhat condemns Starmer for lack of leadership
Tom Tugendhat, the Tory former security minister, said he felt very personally about this.
My home has been broken into, my files have been ransacked. Somebody had been put in my office by a hostile state, and two parties are playing politics with it. This is national security of the United Kingdom.
The elected people of Tonbridge chose me. They may have chosen wrong, but they did. The elected people of other parts of the United Kingdom chose everybody else in this house. It is up to them to choose who represents them.
And yet here we have two individuals seeking to extract information from us, and the government’s response is not as mine was, do everything you can to make sure the prosecution works. But no – process, process.
Well, who the hell’s side are you on? This isn’t about the bureaucracy. This is about leadership.
We’re not sent here to be civil servants. We sent here to lead the country and to make decisions.
Tugendhat said that Ward, a very new minister, had been sent out to “defend the indefensible”. He said Ward was sounding like a bureaucrat, not a politician. Previous attorneys general prosecuted on the state’s behalf. But this attorney general, and this PM, said “not on my watch”, Tugendhat said.
Ward said that he had huge respect for Tugendhat and that he was “genuinely not trying to play politics” with this.
Government weakened case for spy prosecution by including references to China presenting economic opportunity, MPs told
Jeremy Wright, a Tory former attorney general, asked why the witness statments mentioned China presenting an economic opportunity.
What is the possible relevance of the inclusion of information about China as an economic opportunity? Surely the minister can see, and the government can see, that that only weakens the substance of the question that particular witness was being asked to answer.
Ward said that the witness statement was providing the “broader context of the position of the government at the time in relation to the situation on China”.
Edward Leigh (Con) asked for an assurance that there was no ministerial involvement in the CPS decision to drop the case.
Ward replied: “That’s absolutely my understanding.”
Joint committee on national security strategy to hold inquiry into collapse of China spy trial, MPs told
Matt Western, the Labour chair of the joint committee on national security strategy, said that his commitee met this morning and has decided to hold a formal inquiry into this.
He said the chairs of the home affairs committee, the foreign affairs committee and the justice committee were among the committee’s members.
He asked for an assurance that the inquiry would have access to ministers and officials.
Ward said the government welcomed parliamentary scrutiny. He said he was sure witnesses would be made available to the committee.
Jess Brown-Fuller, the Lib Dem spokesperson, called for a public inquiry into this affair.
Ward said parliamentary committees would be looking at this.
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.
Updated
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.
Updated
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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