China Spying Case

Scott Arthur Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can clarify what is happening here. Is the issue that the Government thought that China was a threat to national security but did not declare it, or that they declared it but China was not a threat? I am quite confused about the point he is making.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman will have a perfectly good opportunity to question the people responsible in a few moments’ time. The point is that the Government have been unclear, inconsistent and inaccurate, and we are giving them an opportunity to clear this up right now.

[Dr Arthur]

I think the issue is that the Government in 2023 were not clear on whether or not China was a threat. Did they clearly make the statement that it was a threat, or was China a threat but the Government failed to make that statement?

[Alex Burghart]

The previous Government were clear on a number of occasions that China was a threat, but if the hon. Gentleman had been listening to what I just said, he would have heard that the Director of Public Prosecutions said last week that it was categorically not a question of what the last Government said. Now that I have the hon. Gentleman’s attention, I will repeat for his benefit what the DPP said: that the question was

“whether China was—as a matter of fact—an active threat to national security.”

It was not a question of policy; it was a matter of fact. [Interruption.] I am not going to go through it a third time.