Alleged Spying Case: Role of Attorney-General’s Office

Lord Goldsmith Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hermer (Lab)]

There can be no doubt that for the purposes of an offence said to have been committed between 2021 and 2023, where the test is whether that was provision to an enemy, the question is, were they deemed an enemy during that relevant period, between 2021 and 2023? I do not understand the DPP to be suggesting to the contrary.

[Lord Goldsmith (Lab)]

My Lords, there seems to be a lot of confusion about this at the moment. I respectfully direct attention to what the Director of Public Prosecutions said in a letter to the joint committee last week. He pointed out that on 14 August there was a meeting between the counsel team, the CPS lawyer and the Deputy National Security Adviser in which questions were asked to see whether the prosecution could proceed. The Deputy National Security Adviser told them that he would not state in evidence, if asked, that China posed a risk to our national security at the material time. Of course, as has been said already, the material time was not today; it was the time of the alleged offences, which, as it happens, was under a previous Administration. So, the view of the previous Administration on that was critically important. That is very important to understand, because criticisms have been made of the Crown Prosecution Service which seem to me to be entirely unjustified.

[Lord Hermer (Lab)]

I entirely agree with my noble and learned friend. The test remained the statutory test: was China, beyond reasonable doubt on the criminal standard, an enemy between 2021 and 2023? The immediate difficulties will be obvious if I tell the House what the official position of the Government was during that period. The then Foreign Secretary, Mr Cleverly, said the following in his Mansion House speech—which was delivered a year before the men in these cases were charged—and obviously set out the official position of His Majesty’s Government:

“I’m often asked to express”


the UK’s policy towards China

“in a single phrase, or to sum up China itself in one word, whether ‘threat’, or ‘partner’, or ‘adversary’. And I want to start by explaining why that is impossible, impractical and—most importantly—unwise.”

One can immediately see, even though there was a CPS team who obviously wanted to get this prosecution across the line, the real difficulties because of the 1911 Act, which the Law Commission in 2017 said was no longer fit for purpose. Those difficulties give an insight into the problems faced by the Crown Prosecution Service.