Security Update: Official Secrets Act Case

Kemi Badenoch Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)]

May I associate myself with the Minister’s remarks about Heaton Park synagogue? I thank Mr Speaker for all his work on Members’ security. No one has worked harder to protect the integrity of our Parliament.

The Security Minister is very well regarded, so I am sorry to see that he has been sent here again to make these arguments, which will not wash. This is about the ineptitude of the Government, and I cannot accept much of what he says. He has brought some updates to the House, which we acknowledge, but in essence, China spied on this Parliament and the Government are issuing us with leaflets. That is not good enough. There are Members here who have been spied on and sanctioned by China. Even Madam Deputy Speaker has been sanctioned. All MPs speaking today should be acting in the national interest—nothing else.

Let us remind ourselves of what has happened. Two men have been accused of spying on MPs in this very building. The CPS has what it felt was a clear and compelling case to prosecute, but the trial has collapsed because, for months and months, the Government have refused to give the CPS vital information. That was not a mistake; it was not a misunderstanding; it looks like a deliberate decision to collapse the case and curry favour with the regime in China. Instead of admitting that, the Security Minister has come here blaming the Official Secrets Act, when we know that the Act was enough to prosecute the case. Its deficiencies had nothing to do with the Government’s failures.

May I remind the House how serious this is? If the Government do not prosecute those who spy on us, it sends a message to the public that the Government do not care about their safety; it sends a message to our allies, who share intelligence with us, that Britain cannot be trusted; and it sends a message to those who spy on us that they can get away with it.

Let us look at the facts. First, the Government blamed the CPS. The Minister came to the House on 15 September and claimed that he had become aware of the situation only that day, and that the CPS decision had been an entirely independent one—an assertion that he has repeated today. He said:

“I am not able to talk about why the CPS has decided to make this decision.”—[Official Report, 15 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 1186.]

He said that it was not for him to “speculate on the reason”. He told my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) to “seek a meeting” if she wanted to find out the reasons. However, we now know, despite all he has just said, that the trial collapsed because the Government refused to give the CPS what it needed, and the Minister knew full well why it had collapsed. The Director of Public Prosecutions has said that he spent months trying to get the Government to provide the evidence that the CPS needed.

Secondly, the Government tried blaming the previous Government. Just like the Prime Minister, the Minister claims that the CPS could not prosecute because the previous Government did not describe China as a threat. I cannot believe that he would actually say that. He knows what we said, but let me remind him. For starters, the 2021 integrated review described China as—listen carefully—the “biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security.” The 2023 integrated review refresh said several times that China posed—listen carefully—a threat. In 2024, the then Minister for Security said from the Dispatch Box that China poses a serious threat. But even if the previous Government had not said China was a threat, which they did, this Government needed only to convince a jury that it was a threat, and the Minister knows that. I am astonished that he has repeated that nonsense today.

The Minister’s and Prime Minister’s argument has been refuted by no less than a former DPP, two former Cabinet Secretaries—one a former National Security Adviser—two former heads of MI6, and a professor of public law at the University of Cambridge, who said today that Ministers’ statements so far are “misleading” about the legal position. They are all clear that those people could have been prosecuted under the old legislation. Is the Government’s position that they are all wrong and the Government are right? The Minister referred to R v. Roussev. That case last year made it easier to prosecute, not harder. As the former Director of Public Prosecutions said of recruiting people to spy on MPs,

“That of itself clearly constitutes a threat to national security.”

Only this Government could mess that up.

We know that the National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, has a very close relationship with China. Are we supposed to believe that he was not involved in the “substance of the case and discussions around it”, as they say? What does that even mean? He was in those meetings, acting in the name of the Prime Minister. Do the Government really expect us to believe that he never mentioned any of this to the Prime Minister at any point?

We know from the CPS that it spent months and months asking the Government for the evidence that it needed. The Government say that the NSA did not take the decision not to give it the evidence, so who did? Who made that decision—can the Minister answer that question today? Is the Government’s argument seriously that no Minister knew anything about this until the trial collapsed? If that is the case, it is astonishing. My suspicion is that that is not the case, and that Ministers did know. They had the Chinese super-embassy in their in-tray, and they are allegedly being asked to pay £1 billion in compensation for the nationalisation of British Steel. I suspect that they have decided that closer economic ties with China were more important than due process and our national security. If that is the case, and that was the Government’s decision, they should tell us and have the backbone to admit it. They should explain it to the public, the CPS and our international allies, and let them all be the judge.

This issue is not going away—there is nowhere to hide. I wrote to the Prime Minister today and would like to know when I will get a response to my questions. We have also written to the Crown Prosecution Service to ask whether the trial can be reopened if the Government finally provide the evidence that they have been holding back. We know that the evidence that the CPS needs exists. If the Government decide not to provide it, then we will know that that is because this weak Prime Minister does not have the backbone to stand up to Beijing.

[Dan Jarvis]

I find it genuinely astonishing that at no point did the Leader of the Opposition acknowledge that all the acts that we have been talking about this afternoon happened when she was in government, on her watch.

I believe that it is important to discuss these matters in a fair and reasonable way, so I particularly made sure that the right hon. Lady had early sight of the statement, to give her ample opportunity. She has clearly not read the statement—she either did not read the statement or did not listen to what I have said, because she has asked me a number—[Interruption.]