Security Update: Official Secrets Act Case

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

Let me seek to clarify. The deputy National Security Adviser, who is a senior and highly regarded official with extensive experience in matters relating to national security, provided a witness statement in December 2023. That was under the previous Government, and I made that point earlier. Further witness statements were requested and provided, as I said earlier, in February and July this year. All the evidence provided by the deputy National Security Adviser was based on the law at the time of the offence and the policy position of the Government at the time. I can give the hon. Member an assurance that every effort was made to provide evidence to support this case within the constraints that I have just outlined. The decision about whether to proceed with the prosecution was ultimately taken by the DPP and the CPS, which were hamstrung by antiquated legislation.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I admire the Government’s attempts to pin this on the previous Conservative Government. It is an endeavour in which I would usually join them, but on this occasion I cannot, because the argument simply does not stack up. The argument seems to hinge on the Conservative Government’s classification of China as a threat to national security. That is not a formal classification, but one that needs to be substantiated. The Government seem to be arguing that it was not because, for instance, in the integrated review refresh of 2023, China was merely described as an “epoch-defining…challenge”. However, the same paragraph in that report talks about the Chinese Communist party as presenting

“state threats to the UK’s democracy, economy and society”.

Reports by the Intelligence and Security Committee of the same year talk about how China’s

“ambition at a global level…poses a national security threat to the UK.”

We have heard other testimonies today from MI5 and others. My question to the Government is: was this the sort of evidence that was provided to the CPS? If not, why not? Whose decision was it not to present that kind of evidence?

[Dan Jarvis]

There is, I am afraid, a fundamental flaw in the hon. Gentleman’s question. These activities took place under the previous Government and under the legislation that was in place at the time. This is not about seeking to blame the previous Government, but it is a statement of fact to say that those activities, about which there is concern across the House, took place in the previous Parliament and under the previous legislative framework. That is just a statement of truth.