Downing Street is facing growing calls to publish evidence from the collapsed China spy case, after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) denied blocking its release. The CPS said the decision to make the material public rests with the government, not prosecutors.
The row centres on the trial of Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, a teacher, who were accused of passing secrets to China. Charges were dropped last month after a witness statement by deputy national security adviser Matthew Collins was deemed insufficient to proceed.
Government sources claimed cabinet secretary Chris Wormald had discussed publishing Collins's statement with the CPS, but prosecutors said doing so outside a courtroom would be “inappropriate”. However, a CPS spokesperson stated: “The material contained in them is not ours, and it is a matter for the government… to consider whether or not to make that material public.”
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller urged the government to release the statement, saying: “If ministers have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear. Failure to come clean will just confirm people’s suspicions of a cover-up.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer defended Collins as a “highly respected securocrat” who made “every effort” to support the case, but blamed the previous Conservative government’s China policy for the collapse. The chief prosecutor for England and Wales, Stephen Parkinson, had previously said the government failed to provide evidence that China posed a national security threat at the time of the alleged offences.
