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Lord Goldsmith (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 27 October 2025

Debate

Alleged Spying Case: Role of Attorney-General’s Office

Contribution

My Lords, there seems to be a lot of confusion about this at the moment. I respectfully direct attention to what the Director of Public Prosecutions said in a letter to the joint committee last week. He pointed out that on 14 August there was a meeting between the counsel team, the CPS lawyer and the Deputy National Security Adviser in which questions were asked to see whether the prosecution could proceed. The Deputy National Security Adviser told them that he would not state in evidence, if asked, that China posed a risk to our national security at the material time. Of course, as has been said already, the material time was not today; it was the time of the alleged offences, which, as it happens, was under a previous Administration. So, the view of the previous Administration on that was critically important. That is very important to understand, because criticisms have been made of the Crown Prosecution Service which seem to me to be entirely unjustified.

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