China Spying Case

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

In its inquiry on China from July 2023, the Intelligence and Security Committee, of which I was a member at the time, concluded that China was a threat. The Committee took evidence not from junior security officials, but from the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, the director general of the Security Service and the director of GCHQ, the chief of Defence Intelligence and—this is an important “and”—all the deputy National Security Advisers at the time. That is already public; they reported to the Committee.

That report is clear and unambiguous in calling out China as a national security threat to UK interests. It is also crystal clear, taking the report as a whole, that China’s threat is both live and active. The report was from July 2023, and the alleged offences took place, apparently, from December ’21 to February ’23. I am aware that the refresh of the integrated review of ’21 was in March ’23. However, the Committee’s inquiry started taking evidence from those senior officials from November 2017 to a similar time in 2019, and then the subsequent Committee carried on its work. Senior national security officials were giving evidence to the ISC about China being a national security threat well before the offences happened in this place.

[Dr Evans]

Is that an assertion of fact from the Committee’s report?

[Mark Pritchard]

If we have the directors of all the intelligence agencies suggesting that China is a threat, it does not get much better than that. We have great deputy national security advisers, but their line managers—their directors, their bosses—were also clearly stating that China was a national security threat. In fact, the word “threat” is mentioned 284 times in that 207-page report.

The key word in this whole episode involving the deputy National Security Adviser—that is, the DNSA for intelligence, defence and security, not the other two remaining DNSAs, unless the Minister wants to correct me—is “active”. The question is whether China was an active threat, as underscored by the testimony to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy yesterday. The evidence in the ISC’s report would suggest that China has been known to be an active threat for some time. I have mentioned the various reviews. Indeed, in his own witness statement, the DSNA refers to China conducting “large-scale espionage operations”. Again, this is not a historical reference or a past-tense reference; it is clearly referring to the here-and-now operations taking place today. There is clearly an active threat, not just a general or undetermined threat.

China being an active threat was also underscored by the director general of the Security Service’s recent speech, in which he referred to China’s

“cyber-espionage…clandestine technology transfer…interference in UK public life”

and

“harassment and intimidation of opponents”.

Once more, these threats are not just historical; they are current and active, happening in the UK right now. They have not stopped. They are increasing. They continue.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am listening carefully to my right hon. Friend’s excellent speech. Did he see, in the testimony yesterday, the intervention in which Sir Chris Wormald suddenly said that he did not believe that Ken McCallum, the chief of MI5, had described China as a threat? He intervened on the DNSA to make that point. That is fundamentally untrue, is it not?

[Mark Pritchard]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. I think hon. Members will take their own view on who they think is the expert on national security. I think it will be Sir Ken McCallum, who is a long-serving and distinguished member of the UK intelligence community.

[Chris Law]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Pritchard]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will not, because I will not get another minute, and I want to make some progress and allow other colleagues to speak.

The director general’s speech was explicit. The Security Service is very clear-eyed about the national security threat from China, even though Ministers might be tempted, arguably, to recalibrate and put economic interests over the UK’s national security interests. I wonder whether there might be other factors at work here, too, including underlying vested interests and competing interests between different parts of Government, and even some conflicting personalities. We do not have time to go into that today. Today’s debate is rightly focused on whether politics got in the way of national security.

A wider question might be why a political adviser was appointed to the role of National Security Adviser in the first place, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) said. Perhaps there is something to see here. The current National Security Adviser has wide and vast experience, and I pay tribute to him for his important role in the Northern Ireland peace process and other peace-brokering exercises he has done around the world. There is absolutely no doubt that he is a long-standing, distinguished civil servant, but the fact that an outsider, rather than insider, became the National Security Adviser might be an issue as well. Some may see that as a strength, but today’s proceedings might suggest that it could be a weakness in this case. There is a question mark about that, of course.

Back to China. The conclusions and recommendations of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s inquiry on China talk about proper oversight. We need to ensure that, for example, the investment security unit has proper oversight by the ISC, because if there was ever a place where it was likely that politics would conflict with the economic interests of this country, it was that unit. That is absolutely critical. When politics gets too close to professional, cool, calm intelligence judgments, the situation will always be fraught with danger, as this country witnessed with the Iraq war. In conclusion, when—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. I call Gareth Snell.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Jarvis]

I am just going to make a bit of progress. Let me be clear about two things right from the start. First, we would not be discussing this here today had the outdated Official Secrets Act 1911 been replaced sooner. Secondly, it is the responsibility of the CPS and the DPP to bring criminal prosecutions and compile evidence. The statements submitted to the JCNSS confirm that, as does the evidence that the Joint Committee heard yesterday from the Cabinet Secretary and the DNSA.

We have been consistently clear that no Ministers and no special advisers interfered in the provision of evidence under this Government.

[Mark Pritchard]

Can the Security Minister confirm to the House that the UK Government, at ministerial level and diplomatic level, have not been threatened by the Chinese state about this trial? Has it said, “If this trial goes ahead, there will be consequences”? Is the Minister aware of any discussions or any correspondence, either from the Chinese embassy or directly from Chinese Ministers to ours, that threatens this nation?

[Dan Jarvis]

I say to the right hon. Gentleman—whom I hold in high regard, not least for the work that he did on the ISC—that I can give him the assurances that he seeks. I can also assure him and the House how seriously this Government take the challenges that we face from countries right around the world.

Let me return to the DNSA’s evidence. As his written evidence makes clear—this is an important point that the House will want to note—from the moment the DNSA’s witness statement was submitted, he was a fully bound witness in criminal proceedings. His evidence had not yet been heard or tested in court, so his witness evidence could not be and was not shared, and this was later confirmed by the CPS.

In this debate and in recent weeks, there have been a number of different, and at times conflicting, claims about this Government’s involvement in the case, and I want to address those claims directly today. At the DNSA’s request, the word “enemy” was removed from the first witness statement during the drafting process, because it did not reflect the Government’s policy at the time. The DNSA made amendments to ensure that his witness statement text reflected his assessment of the strongest elements of the evidential material provided by Counter Terrorism Policing, by demonstrating that the information that was alleged to have been provided was prejudicial to the safety or the interests of the UK.

When CTP approached the DNSA to write a supplementary statement in November 2024, he was specifically asked to comment on whether China posed an active threat to the UK’s national security during the period of 31 December 2021 to 3 February 2023, and to confirm whether that remains the position at the time of writing. That is why paragraph 6 of the second statement references part of the current Government policy towards China.