Key witness in spy case said UK wanted ‘positive relationship’ with China despite Beijing being branded a 'threat'
The testimony from a senior civil servant brings into question CPS claims that government inaction collapsed the case against alleged spies
A civil servant giving evidence in the China spying case declared the UK wanted a “positive relationship” with Beijing when asked to prove whether the country was a threat to national security.
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Sir Keir Starmer on Wednesday published evidence that the government submitted in the China spying case after being accused of a cover-up.
The witness statement given by Matthew Collins, the deputy national security adviser, has been released following a clash between the Cabinet and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
In the documents, Beijing is repeatedly called a threat, despite suggestions that the government's inability to do so had collapsed the cash against alleged spies Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry.
Mr Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Mr Berry, a teacher, had been accused of passing secrets to China. Charges against the men, who both deny wrongdoing, were dropped last month.
In one passage, Mr Collins says: "China...presents the biggest state-based threat to the UK's economic security".
He also revealed that the UK's "democratic institutions and parliamentarians" including the Electoral Commission had suffered "large-scale espionage campaigns" by Chinese-state affiliated people and organisations in recent years.
But Mr Collins goes on to say: "It is important for me to emphasise...that the government is committed to pursuing a positive economic relationship with China". It is unclear whether this nuance led the CPS to abandon the case.
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The Director of Public Prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, previously claimed the government's unwillingness to call China a threat was a reason that the trial collapsed.
Sir Keir repeatedly rejected allegations of wrongdoing on the part of the government, and announced he would be publishing the witness statements earlier on Wednesday before Prime Minister's Questions.
The PM made the decision after Number 10 accused the CPS of having blocked the publication of a crucial witness statement.
The CPS hit back, and insisted it was entirely up to the government to release the evidence if it wanted to.
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During Prime Minister's Questions, Kemi Badenoch repeatedly pressed Sir Keir on the handling of the case.
The Tory leader slammed Sir Keir in the Commons, arguing it is "simply unbelievable that he is trying to say the last government did not classify China as a threat".
She referred to several comments made in 2021 and 2024, attributed to the previous Conservative government, and added: “In 2022, the director general of MI5 in November classified China as a threat in his remarks.
"How is it possible that the government failed to provide the evidence that the CPS needed to prosecute?”
Sir Keir replied: “The substantive evidence was provided in 2023 by the previous government. That is when the witness statement was submitted.“
"I am going to disclose it, they will all be able to read it.”
Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald is understood to have been prepared to publish a government witness statement central to the withdrawal of espionage charges against the men.
Sources within the government had claimed the Cabinet Secretary – the country’s most senior civil servant – had gone to the CPS to discuss the publication of the witness statement by Matthew Collins.
It was that statement the CPS deemed did not meet the threshold for proceeding with the trial of the two alleged spies because it did not show China posed a threat to national security at the time the alleged offences occurred.
Prosecutors concluded during their meeting with Civil Service chief Mr Wormald that publishing the evidence outside of a courtroom would be “inappropriate”, senior sources said.
But a CPS spokesperson denied the government’s claims.
The statements were provided to us for the purpose of criminal proceedings which are now over,” they said. The spokesperson added: “The material contained in them is not ours, and it is a matter for the Government, independently of the CPS, to consider whether or not to make that material public.”
Sir Keir has heaped praise on Mr Collins, amid accusations he was being thrown under the bus for providing the government’s evidence in the case.
According to a readout, Sir Keir told his Cabinet on Tuesday Mr Collins is a “highly respected securocrat” who made “every effort” to support the case in court.
However, Mr Collins was constrained by the “policy position of the government at the time of the offence”, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman added.
Sir Keir has denied that the Labour Government was responsible for the decision to drop the charges against Mr Cash and Mr Berry, and blamed the Conservatives’ approach to China in power.
The Prime Minister said the last Tory government “declined to describe China either as an enemy or infer that by describing it as a current threat to national security”.
The party’s foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller said: “If ministers have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear.
“Failure to come clean will just confirm people’s suspicions of a cover-up and that ministers are more worried about cosying up to China than protecting our national security.”