Downing Street has strongly denied the government was involved in the collapse of a prosecution against two men accused of spying for China.
Charges against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry – who both deny the allegations – were dropped by prosecutors in September, prompting criticism from ministers and MPs.
Number 10’s press secretary said “the suggestion that the government withheld evidence, withdrew witnesses or restricted the ability of a witness to draw on a particular bit of evidence are all untrue”.
It comes after the Sunday Times reported senior Whitehall officials met to discuss the trial early last month before the charges were dropped.
Mr Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Mr Berry, were charged under the Official Secrets Act in April 2024, when the Conservatives were in power.
They were accused of gathering and providing information prejudicial to the safety and interests of the state between December 2021 and February 2023.
Several sources close to the trial have told the BBC that the CPS would not have made the decision to charge the pair unless it was confident that it had enough evidence to meet the threshold set in the Act.
Under the Official Secrets Act, anyone accused of spying can only be prosecuted if the information they passed on was useful to an enemy.
However, last month the director of public prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, who leads the CPS, said “the case could no longer proceed to trial since the evidence no longer met the evidential test”.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said the decision was made by the CPS “entirely independently of government” and there was “no role for any government minister or member of the government in this decision-making process”.
He added that the government was “disappointed” that the prosecution had not proceeded.
Mr Parkinson has also insisted no “outside pressure” played a part in the CPS decision.
The Sunday Times reported that in a meeting last month, national security adviser Jonathan Powell revealed the government’s evidence would be based on the national security strategy, which was published in June and does not refer to China as an “enemy”.
Asked if there had been a meeting in Whitehall in which Mr Powell had said China could not be called an enemy in court, the PM’s spokesman said “no”.
He said the government’s evidence in the case was “based on the previous government’s policy that was relevant at the time that the alleged offences took place between 2021 and 2023”.
The position of the Conservative government at the time was to describe China as an “epoch-defining challenge”, not an enemy.
The decision to drop charges against the pair has been criticised by MPs, including Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle who said it could leave Parliament vulnerable to espionage.
Conservative MP Alicia Kearns, who previously employed Mr Cash as a parliamentary researcher, said it was “inexplicable” that the trial would have collapsed “without either ministerial or national security advisor or executive involvement”.
“I have no question that the Crown Prosecution Service made this decision independently,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme earlier.
“However, it seems very clear to me that their ability to prosecute was spiked.”
“The evidential standard was met when charges were laid and something has happened, and I’m afraid it happened in the last few weeks before the trial was meant to go to court, where something changed, where the evidential standard was no longer met because something was withdrawn,” she said.
“That can only happen if a witness was withdrawn, evidence was withdrawn, or the intelligence on which an officer of the state was expecting to operate was withdrawn…
“Either ministers or senior advisors acted with [Keir] Starmer’s full knowledge, or they acted in contradiction and contempt of his wishes in a way that spiked the CPS’s ability to prosecute.”
Kearns, who has been a vocal critic of China, said she was concerned the government was “putting our national security second” because it wanted to reset relations with Beijing.
In October 2024 David Lammy became only the second foreign secretary in six years to visit China, where he said Beijing and London should “find pragmatic solutions to complex challenges”.
Since last year’s general election, Labour has sought closer trade ties with China to help boost economic growth.
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