Official Secrets Act Case: Witness Statements Debate
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Peter Swallow
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Official Secrets Act Case: Witness Statements
Peter Swallow Excerpts(1 day, 16 hours ago)
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Chris Ward
Just to say, I have huge respect for the right hon. Member, even if that evidently is not mutual at the moment—let us see if we can get to that place.
The Prime Minister answered this question yesterday. I fully appreciate how personally this affects the right hon. Member, his constituency and his office. I do understand that, and I am genuinely not trying to play politics. I see his eyebrows raised at that, but I am genuinely not. I am trying to tell the story of how this situation has progressed and to reiterate from the Dispatch Box the point that the Prime Minister made yesterday and the Security Minister made on Monday, which is that the Government’s position—as it has been under successive Governments, but particularly under this Prime Minister—is that there will be no interference with the CPS in the process of this, and that every effort was made to try to deliver evidence to support its case when it was asked for.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
As the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) emphasises so emphatically, across the whole House we are appalled by the actions of the Chinese state. I want to go back to the precise law under which the charges were brought. The Act was first introduced in 1911 and the Conservatives set out to review it when they were in Government in 2015, but they did not successfully replace with a law that was fit for purpose until 2023, eight years later. Had the Conservatives got on with the job and replaced the law more quickly, would we be in a different position now?
Chris Ward
My hon. Friend invites me to play party politics, and I have promised several times that I am not going to do that. Factually, it is true that if the espionage Act had been updated more quickly and the current Act had been in place at the time, the case would have been able to proceed. That is the case. Decisions were taken not to do that, and I think that is greatly regrettable.