MPs will hold an inquiry into the collapse of a trial of two men accused of spying for China, after No 10 published key evidence in an attempt to draw a line under the row.
Matt Western, a Labour MP and chair of the joint committee on the national security strategy, told the House of Commons there are “a lot of questions yet to be asked” and announced a formal inquiry.
Western was speaking during an urgent question on the unexpected collapse of the case last month.
Charges were dropped against Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, a teacher, after prosecutors said the government had not provided evidence that China represented a “threat to the national security of the UK”. Cash and Berry have denied any wrongdoing.
Christopher Berry (left), a teacher, and Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, have denied any wrongdoing. Photograph: PA
Ministers published the three witness statements submitted to prosecutors by the deputy national security adviser, Matthew Collins, late on Wednesday after accusations they had interfered with the trial to protect the UK’s trading relationship with China.
Ministers said on Thursday that the director of public prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, should now explain why he felt he could not proceed with the trial.
Chris Ward, a Cabinet Office minister, said the decision to abandon the trial “was taken purely by the Crown Prosecution Service” and that Collins’s statements demonstrate he “took significant strides to articulate the threat of China in support of the prosecution”.
Conservative MPs said the third and final statement submitted by Collins in August reflected the Labour government’s approach to China, directly mirroring language in the party’s manifesto.
Ward said Collins had included this “freely without interference from ministers or advisers” and was reflecting “the wider context of the situation we’re in”.
Neil O’Brien, a shadow minister, questioned why the government did not go further to provide the level of the evidence asked for by the CPS.
Tom Tugendhat, the former shadow security minister who employed Cash as a researcher, accused Keir Starmer of hiding behind process instead of doing everything he could “to make sure the prosecution works”.
Raising a point of order after the debate, Tugendhat told MPs that “clearly, this isn’t a democracy any more” and added: “Given that the government’s position is that the bureaucrats run the government, the bureaucrats are in charge of everything, may we dissolve this house and save the taxpayer the money?”
Downing Street revealed on Wednesday that Starmer had been informed the case was on the brink of collapse days before the CPS had announced it, but had said it was not for him to intervene in the matter.
Earlier on Thursday, Stephen Kinnock, a health minister, told broadcasters the government was “deeply disappointed that the prosecution didn’t go ahead” and that Stephen Parkinson was “the best person to explain” why the CPS felt the government’s evidence did not meet the bar.
In his statements, written in 2023 and 2025, Collins said Beijing’s intelligence agencies “conduct large-scale espionage operations” which “harm the interests and security of the UK” and “threaten the UK’s economic prosperity and resilience, and the integrity of our democratic institutions”.
Asked whether this demonstrated that the error rested with the CPS, Kinnock told Sky News: “The DPP told MPs yesterday that he felt the evidence was 95% of the way there, but there was a 5% gap that was missing. I think he’s the best person to explain what that 5% that was missing was.”
Alicia Kearns, a Conservative MP who employed Cash as a researcher before he was arrested, said she would be questioning Parkinson on Thursday on why prosecutors did not push ahead with the trial. “In my view the CPS should have proceeded with this and that’s a discussion I will have with the DPP when I see him today for the first time,” she told BBC Radio 4.
Kearns added that “when the government was informed the case was at risk they had a duty to take action”.
The controversy has turned the spotlight on the espionage activities carried out by China’s intelligence services. On Wednesday, Dominic Cummings, who served as Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, claimed he and the then prime minister were briefed in 2020 that China had breached secure high-level systems involving Strap material, a security classification for highly sensitive information, and this had never before been made public.
The Cabinet Office, senior cybersecurity officials and ministers have since strongly denied that the “most sensitive government information” had been compromised.