The Treasury pressured Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, to suppress reports detailing Beijing’s threat during the investigation into two individuals accused of espionage for China.
The Telegraph reports that in June, Powell determined the UK government would withhold publication of espionage details from the Foreign Office’s China audit, a comprehensive cross-Whitehall examination of Britain’s relations with Beijing, as reported by City AM.
His choice came after Treasury officials argued that disclosing information from the “comprehensive” assessment of China’s influence in Britain might harm trade and investment connections.
Parliamentary members anticipated the government would release redacted information regarding China’s national security threat from the audit during the summer months.
Nevertheless, following Treasury objections, Powell chose to incorporate the report into his National Security Strategy (NSS), a distinct document published in June, The Telegraph revealed.
A government representative stated the China audit remained unpublished in detail due to much of its classified nature.
This emerges as the government faced criticism for declining to designate China as a national security threat, seeking to safeguard the UK’s commercial relationship with the nation. The media is questioning whether ministers or Powell had any involvement in the dismissal of an espionage case against two men earlier this month.
The Prime Minister, currently visiting India, has denied that ministers played a role in the trial’s collapse.
“I can be absolutely clear no ministers were involved in any of the decisions since this government’s been in, in relation to the evidence that’s put before the court on this issue,” he declared.
Christopher Cash (30), a former parliamentary researcher and director of the China Research Group, and Christopher Berry (33), a former English teacher in China, were charged last year under section one of the 1911 Official Secrets Act.
The charges relate to obtaining, collecting, recording, publishing, or communicating notes, documents, or information that could be, or were intended to be, directly or indirectly useful to an enemy. Both men refute the allegations.
However, earlier this month, just one month prior to the scheduled start of the trial, the case fell apart when the prosecutor, Tom Little KC, informed the judge at the Old Bailey, “We simply cannot continue to prosecute this case.”
Labour’s role under scrutiny
Since then, questions have been raised in Whitehall regarding the government’s involvement.
The UK’s terror law watchdog has asserted that China poses a “threat to national security” and is now investigating the matter following the trial’s collapse.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)’s chief prosecutor, Stephen Parkinson, stated that they had appropriately charged Cash and Berry under the Official Secrets Act, but were compelled to reassess the case following a High Court ruling concerning five Bulgarian nationals convicted of espionage in the UK on behalf of Russia.
The individuals were prosecuted under the 1911 Act, which criminalised activities “useful to an enemy”, a designation the UK administration does not attribute to China. This Act was superseded by the National Security Act in December 2023.
In conversation with City AM, Nick Vamos, who leads business crime and investigations at Peters & Peters and previously headed special crime at the CPS, described Parkinson’s rationale as one that “doesn’t add up.”
He clarified, “The Court of Appeal decision in the Bulgarian spy case expanded rather than restricted the definition of ‘enemy’. The Court explicitly stated that “we do not think that this term raises a question of any particular complexity” and that “enemy means the same thing now as it did (since the Act came into force)” which includes countries that represent a current threat to national security. The judgment did not set any new evidential bars.”
Even former national security adviser Lord Sedwill questioned the justification offered for the case’s collapse. During a podcast appearance, he expressed being “genuinely puzzled” that the proceedings had crumbled on the grounds that China was considered not to pose a security threat.
