Chris Philp
Main Page: Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South)Department Debates - View all Chris Philp's debates with the Cabinet Office
(2 days, 5 hours ago)
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The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)
I will do my best, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart). First, I want to reinforce, not just as a Minister, but as a parliamentarian, the Government’s deep regret about the collapse of the criminal case concerning the two individuals charged under the Official Secrets Act 1911. Everyone in the Government was hoping that the trial would go ahead and planning on the basis that it would.
As a reminder, following the arrests of Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry in March 2023 as part of a counter-espionage operation, counter-terrorism police requested that the deputy National Security Adviser act as a witness in the case. [Interruption.] Let me go through this, because it is important to the challenges made by the hon. Gentleman. The DNSA made it clear that he would provide evidence on the basis of the Government’s position at the time of the offences, and that is crucial to the judgment that has been made in this case. The first statement was drafted—
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I will make some progress, and then I will give way to the shadow Home Secretary.
The first statement was drafted between August and December 2023. During that time, Counter Terrorism Policing was updated on progress, including the information that the deputy National Security Adviser would not be able to call China an enemy, as that was not the position of the Government at the time of the offences.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
Okay, I will let the shadow Home Secretary intervene on that point.
Chris Philp
The Minister has said twice in the last minute that the question was the policy of the last Government. Let me take him to page 4 of the letter from the Director of Public Prosecutions, dated Thursday of last week. In that letter, the DPP said—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Interventions should be short.
Chris Philp
The DPP said the opposite of what the Minister has said. He said that the issue was a question of fact, and not—categorically not—the policy of the last Government.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! The right hon. Gentleman has just quoted page 4 of the DPP’s letter. Let me quote page 5 to him:
“The information that we required related to the period between 31 December 2021 and 3 February 2023. The position of the current Government was not relevant to the case.”
I suggest that the shadow Home Secretary look at the next page.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
No, it is not misleading. Will the right hon. Gentleman give me a moment? It was the position at the relevant time. What is even worse, however, is that the word “enemy” was not the position at the time. It came out of the statement, and that happened under the previous Government, I am afraid.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
“In my opinion, China poses an active and current threat to the United Kingdom.” That is all that the Government needed to say to the Crown Prosecution Service in order to secure this conviction, and yet they did not.
As recently as 12 days ago, the director general of M15 said that China posed a daily threat. In July 2022, he and his FBI counterpart said that China was posing a growing threat. The former Security Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), said it in April 2024, from that Dispatch Box, and the July 2021 integrated review said that China posed the
“biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security.”
It is pretty simple. I have said it, and the Government could have said it, but they did not.
The Government’s commentary on this case has been evasive and sometimes misleading. For example, the Prime Minister claimed in India, on 7 October, that what mattered in this case was the previous Government’s designation of China. He said it again, from that Dispatch Box, on 15 October. He said that the issue was the position of the last Government, and the Paymaster General said it again in his opening speech. That claim, made by the Prime Minister and made again by the Paymaster General earlier today, is categorically untrue. We know it is untrue because on page 4 of his letter, the Director of Public Prosecutions said it was untrue. He said:
“The test was therefore positively not what the then Government was prepared to… say in public…whether framed as…policy or otherwise…but…whether China was—as a matter of fact—an active threat to national security.”
He said it again in evidence yesterday. He said:
“We were looking to the DNSA to provide evidence of the actual threat…and not what government policy was.”
The DPP has said that categorically in writing and in evidence yesterday. What the Prime Minister said was misleading, and I ask this Minister, the Security Minister, to retract it on the Prime Minister’s behalf.
Moreover, the Security Minister himself said on 15 September that the collapse of the case had come as a big surprise to the Government, and that they heard about it only that morning. He said:
“the decision was communicated this morning”.—[Official Report, 15 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 1187.]
That, I am afraid, was not true. The decision was communicated on 3 September at the latest, and it most certainly did not come as a surprise to the Government.
It was not the case that, as the Minister claimed, he could not comment on why the case had collapsed, as if he did not know about it, because on no fewer than nine different occasions, according to the DPP, the Crown Prosecution Service pleaded with the Government—begged the Government—to say those simple words that I said a couple of minutes ago and the Government, over two years, refused to say. In June 2024, December 2024, February 2025, May 2025, July 2025—twice, on 3 and 10 July—August 2025, 3 September 2025 and 9 September 2025, the CPS begged the Government to say those simple words, and the Government would not say them. Why exactly was the Security Minister acting all surprised on 15 September, claiming that he did not know what was going on, when on nine separate occasions the CPS had pleaded with the Government?
Now we come to the meeting of 1 September, a meeting that the Home Secretary, quoted in The Telegraph on 5 October, claimed did not happen. Well, we now know that it did happen. What we do not know, however, is precisely what was discussed at that meeting. We have not seen the minutes of it, and we do not know the actions arising from it. We do know that it was chaired by Jonathan Powell, the National Security Adviser. We know that many people were there. We know that the deputy National Security Adviser, Matt Collins, was there. We also know that on 14 August, two and a half weeks before that meeting, he attended a conference that included the First Treasury Counsel, at which it became clear that Mr Collins would not change his evidence, and the case would therefore collapse. So Mr Collins went into that meeting on 1 September, most likely knowing that the case was unlikely to proceed. Was that discussed? Was the possibility of providing more evidence discussed in that meeting? We do not know. That is why the minutes need to be published.
We know for a fact that, on 3 September, the Director of Public Prosecutions informed the Cabinet Secretary and the DNSA that the case was not going to be proceeding on the evidence as it stood. The DPP also said in page 6 of his letter:
“It was agreed that”
the Cabinet Secretary
“might inform a limited group, including some ministers.”
I therefore ask the Security Minister to tell the House now which Ministers were informed pursuant to that meeting on 3 September, and whether they took any action as a result—for example, deciding to provide better evidence, which they could have done. It was recently reported in The Sunday Times that the Home Secretary got wind of this around that time, and decided to try to intervene.
I did ask the Security Minister this in an urgent question last week, and many of my hon. Friends did as well, but he did not answer the question, so perhaps he now can: when did the Home Secretary become aware of the collapse of the trial? Did she try to intervene? If so, how? It is quite clear that the Government, had they wanted to, could have intervened between 3 September, when the Cabinet Secretary was informed and was given permission to inform Ministers, and the meeting on 9 September, six days later, when the CPS tried, one last time—at least the ninth time—to get the evidence it needed, but, once again, it was not forthcoming.
Did the Government have any discussions in that period, between 3 and 9 September, about further evidence that they might have provided? If they did not, why not? A few simple words were all that were needed—words not about the previous Government’s policy, but about the facts as they stood on the ground. I uttered those words just a few minutes ago—it was simple enough—and if this Government had said what I said a few minutes ago, this case would have proceeded. Why did they choose not to do that?
Members of this Parliament have been spied on by a hostile state: a state that has stolen intellectual property on an industrial scale, both covertly and through acquisition; a state that plans to build a large embassy, probably for espionage purposes among other things; a state that has opened secret police stations; a state that has put bounties on the heads of people living in the United Kingdom; and a state that has actively supported Russia in its war against Ukraine. The Government could not produce evidence that it was an active and current threat, even though I think it is quite clear to everyone in this Chamber that it was.
Why did the Government not provide the evidence they were asked to provide at least nine times? Is it because they are more interested in getting some sort of economic bailout from the Chinese, to fix the mess they have created, than they are in our national security? That is the question they need to answer.
If this House and the country are to understand exactly what happened with this case, we need full transparency and full disclosure: the minutes of those meetings, the actions arising from them, and the correspondence with the CPS. If they really want transparency—as the Minister for the Cabinet Office said earlier—all they have to do is support this motion and put this material where it belongs: in the public domain.
Dan Jarvis
The right hon. and learned Gentleman served in a Government a number of years ago. I can give him an assurance that this Government work collaboratively across Government with other Departments, and therefore it seems to make perfect sense that other Departments would be represented at such a meeting.
I will try to reflect some of the points that have been made in this debate, including the point from the shadow Home Secretary, who asked specifically about the Home Secretary. I can tell him and the House that no Minister—no Minister in this Government—was involved in any aspect of the production of evidence.
Dan Jarvis
The Liberal Democrats spokesman, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), offered his service as a marriage guidance counsellor. I would advise him not to give up his job.
