At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson took questions for about 45 minutes on the collapse of the China spying prosecution. The briefing did not provide answers to all the questions raised by Kemi Badenoch (see 10.20am) and others, but it did move things on a bit. Here are the main points.
The PM’s spokesperson said it was “entirely false” to claim the government played a role in getting the CPS to drop the prosection. (See 12.55pm.)
The spokesperson said the government did provide evidence to the CPS to support a prosecution. He said:
The government has provided the evidence that was drawn up under the previous government – evidence that was drawn up consistent with the previous government’s stance on China, and consistent with what the Official Secrets Act 1911 requires. The evidence was drawn up using the full range of evidence across government.
But he said the government could only provide evidence relating to what the threat assessment of China was at the time the alleged offences were committed.
The spokesperson rejected suggestions the government withheld evidence from the CPS. He said:
The director of public prosecutions has given his assurance that the the CPS were not influenced any external party.
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