Emily Thornberry

May I begin by expressing solidarity with the two previous Conservative Chairs of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who would seem to have suffered from having Chinese spies in their offices? That must have been very distressing, upsetting and threatening. The DPP’s claim of needing further evidence from the Government and decision not to publish the China audit has, I think, become conflated and resulted in a great deal of muddle and confusion, and allegations that the Government are soft-pedalling on China. Before we disappear down that rabbit hole, may I take us back to basics? As I understand it, these men were charged with an offence under section 1(1)(c) of the Official Secrets Act: to pass on information that “might be…directly or indirectly useful to an enemy”. When the Crown Prosecution Service was building its case, presumably it had a witness and presumably that witness was the deputy National Security Adviser, who was there to answer this question: is China an enemy? Without that evidence, there was no point in charging the men in 2024. What has changed since 2024? We are told that what has changed is that the enemy is now—[Interruption.]