China Spying Case

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

My right hon. Friend makes a very pertinent point and is personally very experienced in such things. It has been reported that the National Security Adviser chaired that meeting. That is to say that he was taking a very active role in what was going on. That is why it is incredibly important that the Government come clean with us about what happened in that meeting, who attended and what was decided there.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The National Security Adviser has spent a great deal of time visiting various Chinese entities before and after his appointment. One appointment that he does not appear very keen on taking up is with the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, which has requested—quite legitimately, under the Osmotherly rules—that he appears before it, but Ministers appear to be blocking that. Why does my hon. Friend think that is?

[Alex Burghart]

My right hon. Friend is right: the National Security Adviser showed a great reluctance to attend. I understand that he has now agreed to attend, although the report I read said that he was going to attend in camera. If that report is correct—the Minister has the opportunity to say it is not true—I am not sure that that is the best level of transparency that this House might expect.

The second instance of inconsistency and inaccuracy that we draw attention to is from 7 October, when the Prime Minister told journalists that what mattered in this case was the designation of China as it had been in 2023, when the offences were alleged to have occurred. However, last week, on 24 October, the Director of Public Prosecutions said that that was categorically not the case. He said:

“The test was…positively not what the then Government was prepared to, or did, say in public about China…but rather whether China was—as a matter of fact—an active threat to national security.”

This is a most important point, and one that was revisited yesterday. There is a very serious question about why the deputy National Security Adviser believed that he would

“need to be in line with government policy at the time”,

when the Crown Prosecution Service said that it did not need to know about policy, but about the facts. The Minister should explain to the House why the deputy National Security Adviser chose to ignore the CPS in this case. He should also tell us whether he thinks the deputy National Security Adviser complied with civil procedure rule 35, which requires him to assist the court and overrides any other obligation.