China Espionage: Government Security Response

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made earlier today in the other place, with her own tone and emphasis.

Recent political and media attention has focused on the failed prosecution of two British men accused of spying for China—one of whom worked in the Houses of Parliament. The circumstances of that case remain opaque and the consequences unresolved.

Looking beyond that case, it is clear China presents a substantial threat to this country and our interests on multiple fronts. The Government’s own 2025 national security strategy recognises that China has

“the ability to undermine our security”

and that,

“instances of China’s espionage, interference in our democracy and the undermining of our economic security have increased in recent years”.

Publicly documented cases of the intimidation of UK-based Hong Kong activists, attempts to meddle in the United Kingdom Parliament and cyberattacks are just some of the threats that China poses to us; the Government need to be clear and robust in response. We also need to be proactive in order to prevent such malign actions from taking place in the first place.

Chatham House has made it clear that:

“China presents an intelligence challenge of unprecedented scale and ambition. It is not only the world’s largest authoritarian regime but an economic and technological superpower”,


with the ability to undertake substantial operations in many theatres across the world.

The Government have spoken in their Statement today about a response to Chinese espionage and the removal of Chinese equipment from sensitive sites, but what about a response to the risks posed by the development of a Chinese embassy—or more particularly, a Chinese intelligence facility—in the immediate vicinity of some of the most sensitive communications channels in the country? That also requires to be addressed.

It is clear that we need to be far more proactive in how we deal with this threat, so we are not reduced to responding to events and to malign interference once it has occurred. We need to be able to stop it happening in the first place. We are facing a world in which the influence of China is set to increase, alongside the scale of the threat that it poses to us, and prevention will be a much better approach in the long term.

After completing its China audit earlier this year, the Government committed to strengthening China expertise within the national security system. That is a welcome commitment which goes some way in recognising the threat. However, experts are clear that capability needs to extend far beyond a relatively small circle of officials.

The Government must invest far more in helping politicians, civil servants, businesses, universities and the wider public to understand how the Chinese Communist Party seeks to advance its interests and how the United Kingdom should respond. I welcome that the Minister in the other place set out some steps that the Government are taking to do this, but there should be a far wider campaign to raise public awareness and to provide information to people in academia, politics, industry and other parts of our economy and country, so that they can identify threats and take action proactively.

There have been many recent cases which have highlighted where this approach would have been beneficial. In the past few weeks, Professor Michelle Shipworth of University College London compared China’s influence on teaching to “termites eating a house”. She related how Chinese MSc students, and then her own superiors at University College’s Bartlett School of Environment, tried to get her to cut out references to abuses of human rights in China from a module she teaches on critical thinking in data analysis.

Indeed, the collapsed prosecution case I mentioned earlier involved a person who was a staffer in this very building. Academics, politicians, civil servants and we in your Lordships’ House are now on the front line. This has been identified by the security services. The director-general of MI5 warned in 2022 that China poses a “whole-of-system challenge”, that demands

“a profound whole-of-system response”.

This has to be an ongoing effort, facilitated by the Government, to ensure that threats are now identified and mitigated before they can fully manifest.

I have painted a gloomy picture, and with good cause, but we have some substantial advantages in the face of this challenge. It is obvious that, while China brings a wealth of resources to its intelligence campaigns, many of its attempts to influence politics and public life in the United Kingdom, and indeed other democracies, are not terribly sophisticated. Furthermore, the Chinese Communist Party has few ideological supporters in the United Kingdom, therefore limited ground on which to thrive.

If British officials, politicians, academics, businesspeople and the wider public are more aware of that party’s tactics, they will be better able to resist them. However, this is reliant on the Government’s strategy on this question broadening out to include all of those who are now on the front line and not merely containing this within counterintelligence circles. This cannot be a one-time response to a flurry of news reports or a failed prosecution; this has to come in the form of a new culture of security which is aware of, alive to and preventative of the subversive and malign action that China wishes to take against us.

I therefore want to ask the Minister some questions on this point. What plans do the Government have to work with partners in Europe and Asia to collect expertise and resources in order to expand public awareness about China? In particular, what lessons are the Government learning from Taiwan, which is facing probably the greatest barrage of espionage and influence campaigns from China? What help can it give us to deal with this?

What work are the Government doing to help people in this country identify and be aware of the risks that China poses to them as individuals, as well as to us as a collective? Will the Government publish a long-term approach to engaging with China, and will they make clear both to Beijing and to the British public what our red lines actually are and how we will ensure that they are enforced?

The British people need to be aware of the threats and of the actions that the Government are taking to protect them. I hope that the Minister can use this opportunity to answer these points.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I start by joining the Minister in paying tribute to the crew member of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Tidesurge lost off the coast of Ireland.

This is my first opportunity to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Alton, back to his place—he has been missed.

I thank the Minister for repeating this Statement, which we broadly welcome. It seems to represent a change of gear, certainly from the approach of the previous Government. The ISC report on China in 2023 concluded that China had been able to

“penetrate every sector of the UK’s economy”.

At last, this seems to be being taken seriously. However, clearly, with such a deep threat, there is an awful lot that needs to be done, and some of that is reflected in this Statement.

Any Statement like this begs questions that cannot be answered, so I am going to try to ask questions that can be publicly asked. I start with the point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, around the failed prosecution of the two spies. There are many questions on this. Will the Government launch an independent inquiry into the collapse of that case and ensure that there are lessons learned from this appalling failure of national security?

In the other place, the Minister fully recognised that the Government know that China

“poses a series of threats to UK national security”,

yet when it comes to putting China in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme, yet again the Minister said that “no decision” on China has been made. What more has to be done for China to qualify to be put on this register? Given the reluctance to enact FIRS, what guidance is now being given to MPs, Select Committees and researchers on contacts with representatives of the Chinese Government and other Governments?

The Statement also specifically calls for co-operation with China on scientific research. Such engagement is extremely fraught. A huge amount of guidance and focus needs to be brought to this so that universities can safely engage in any co-operation. Clearly, they have raised the flag on this and there is an awful lot of work to do.

The Statement talks about a “low threshold” of what information is considered valuable, so are there plans to discuss how or whether to tighten the vetting and ongoing monitoring of researchers and staff, and how they access and deliver sensitive information? The Statement also says that the Government will

“strengthen the legislative tools available … to disrupt the threat”.

Is this solely going to be the cybersecurity and resilience Bill, or is there another piece of legislation looming for this? It would be useful to know. When will the elections Bill be introduced? We really welcome it and remind your Lordships that this is not specifically a China problem. With Russia waging a hybrid war against us, the sooner we can get this Bill out and discussed the better.

The removal of technology from sensitive sites is good news, but does the Minister accept that, beyond the locations mentioned, there is much to be done to remove Chinese-manufactured electronic components that put our national infrastructure at risk? Who is accountable for spearheading a programme for technology that has been manufactured by friends and not by China, which we know from this Statement does not have our best interests at heart? We should start with the electricity grid and power generation as a focus.

The economic security advisory service for business is a welcome idea. To which department will it report, and how will it fit in with other processes, such as the National Security and Investment Act?

Chinese dissidents and Hong Kongers are having bounties levied on them, including here in the UK. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will sanction those officials responsible for levying these bounties and provide a much clearer legislative protection against transnational repression?

Predictably, I will raise China’s new super-embassy, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, did. Given everything in this Statement, it should be unthinkable that the application succeeds. Under no circumstance should a hub for the network of spies that the Government have set out in this Statement be built. When will the Government rule out this embassy?

Finally, can the Minister update your Lordships on planned visits by Cabinet Ministers and the Prime Minister to the People’s Republic of China?