Starmer intervention in China spy case collapse would have been ‘absurd’ – No 10

Downing Street has said it would have been “absurd” for the Prime Minister to step in after being told the China spy case was going to collapse, stressing it was a “criminal matter” for the Crown Prosecution Service to handle independently.

In a fresh warning about China, the head of MI5 has meanwhile warned “Chinese state actors” present a national security threat to the UK “every day”, with the security services having carried out an operation against a threat from Beijing within the last week.

Statements provided by deputy national security adviser Matt Collins as part of the CPS’s case have prompted fresh questions about why it collapsed.

They showed the Government’s evidence warned of Beijing’s large-scale espionage but stressed the desire to seek a positive relationship with the economic superpower.

MPs are meanwhile due to hold an inquiry into the case.

The CPS dropped the case against Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry in September after deeming the evidence did not show China was a threat to national security.

Both men, who deny wrongdoing, had been accused of passing secrets to China.

Asked why Sir Keir Starmer did not intervene when the CPS informed him they would withdraw it, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman 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.”

Elsewhere a speech at MI5’s London headquarters, the service’s director general Sir Ken McCallum brought home ongoing efforts to tackle Chinese espionage.

He highlighted attempts by China to carry out “cyber espionage”, “clandestine technology transfer”, efforts to “interfere covertly in UK public life” and the “harassment and intimidation of opponents” including pro-democracy activists.

“When it comes to China, the UK needs to defend itself resolutely against threats and seize the opportunities that demonstrably serve our nation,” he said.

Asked directly whether China as a whole was a national security threat, Sir Ken said: “Question one is: do Chinese state actors present a UK national security threat?

“And the answer is, of course, yes they do, every day.”

Chris Ward, in his first outing as a Cabinet Office minister in the Commons, had earlier told MPs the evidence in the three statements by Mr Collins published on Wednesday night “sets out the threats China poses multiple times”.

In one of his witness statements Mr Collins called China “the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security”.

Ministers have throughout insisted the collapsed case relied upon the previous Tory government’s policy towards China, which classified China as an “epoch-defining challenge” rather than a threat.

But in the last paragraph of his third and final statement in August, just weeks before the case collapsed, Mr Collins used the exact language of the current Labour Government’s approach to China.

That “Three C’s” approach is based on co-operation where there are of shared interests, competition in other areas and challenge on issues including national security.

No 10 insisted Mr Collins was subject to “routine handling controls” by the CPS to ensure he was “able to give his evidence without any influence”, when asked if ministers or officials had asked him to reflect the Government’s China policy.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said he did not accept that including Labour’s policy in the evidence risked undermining the case, and that it was included to provide context.

The statement was published in “as full a version” as it could “possibly be”, the spokesman said, suggesting some names had been removed.

The Conservatives, including party leader Kemi Badenoch, have questioned why Mr Collins’s final statement set out Labour’s approach to China.

Mrs Badenoch had asked whether an “official, adviser or minister suggest that this should be included”.

In a letter responding to questions from the Conservative leader, Sir Keir said he will “will not stand for anyone being unfairly blamed” for the collapse of the case.

The Prime Minister also 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.”

It is “simply untrue” that National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell ruled during a September meeting that China could not be defined as a threat, Sir Keir added.

A parliamentary committee will launch a formal inquiry into what has happened.

Labour MP Matt Western, chairman of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, said there are “a lot of questions yet to be asked” as he announced the move.