No 10 says claims it concealed evidence or withdrew witnesses to stop China spy trial are ‘categorically untrue’ – UK politics live | Politics

At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson took questions for about 45 minutes on the collapse of the China spying prosecution. The briefing did not provide answers to all the questions raised by Kemi Badenoch (see 10.20am) and others, but it did move things on a bit. Here are the main points.

The government has provided the evidence that was drawn up under the previous government – evidence that was drawn up consistent with the previous government’s stance on China, and consistent with what the Official Secrets Act 1911 requires. The evidence was drawn up using the full range of evidence across government.

But he said the government could only provide evidence relating to what the threat assessment of China was at the time the alleged offences were committed.

The director of public prosecutions has given his assurance that the the CPS were not influenced any external party.

As we repeatedly said also in the course of the last week or so, the suggestions that the government concealed evidence, withdrew evidence, withdrew witnesses are all categorically untrue.

• The spokesperson rejected suggestions that Jonathan Powell, the national security adviser, sabotaged the prosecution. Referring to a Sunday Times story, the spokesperson said:

There have been various reports alleging that a meeting was held about the case in September where the national security adviser ruled that China could not be defined as a threat or took a decision to withdraw evidence or withdraw key witnesses. That is simply untrue.

The national security adviser happening, nor any government minister, made no decisions on the content of any evidence relating to the case, nor has he or any government minister had any part in any decisions about the substance of the case itself.

At that point, when the Powell meeting was taking place, government officials were working on the basis that the trial was going to go ahead, it is claimed.

• The spokesperson echoed Hamish Falconer this morning in suggesting that the Official Secrets Act 1911 should have been updated earlier. (See 9.53am.) The spokesperson said the National Security Act which is now in force would make prosecuting alleged offences like these ones (committed when the old law still applied) easier. The new law “removes the unhelpful enemy designation language from the Official Secrets Act” and is “state agnostic”, he said.

• The spokesperson accepted that in some respects China does pose a “threat” to the UK. This government, like the last one, has been reluctant to explicitly describe China as a threat. The spokesperson said that the national security strategy made it clear that China is a country with “potentially huge consequencese for the lives of British citizens”. He went on:

We detailed how instances of China’s espionage, interference in our democracy, undermining our economic security, have increased.

In recent years, successive governments said that China can’t be reduced to a single word – either threat, challenge or opportunity – but in reality it presents all of these things, which is why we are taking a long-term, strategic approach.

In previous briefings Downing Street has avoided using the word “threat” in the context of China, and so this does seem to be a modest hardening of the government’s position.