He told The Times: “As Speaker I take the security of this house incredibly seriously. I believe this leaves the door open to foreign actors trying to spy on the House. This door must be closed hard. We must pursue all avenues to ensure the protection of members and people that work within the House of Commons. It will not be tolerated.”
Sir Keir Starmer and Mahmood have both expressed disappointment about the decision.
Christopher Berry and Chris Cash, a former parliamentary researcher and director of the China Research Group, were charged last April under the Official Secrets Act with passing information to an “enemy”. As recently as last week police were preparing witnesses before a trial next month.
However, the case was dropped at the Old Bailey on Monday when prosecutors said the evidential threshold had not been reached. Cash and Berry, who had both previously taught in China, said charges should never have been brought. Henry Blaxland KC, for Cash, said his client was “entirely innocent” and should have been “congratulated rather than prosecuted” for his work exposing risks posed by China.
Armstrong solicitors, for Berry, said he did not understand why the prosecution was brought, that he had never had access to classified information and that he had not harboured any pro-Chinese political sympathies.
The Crown Prosecution Service has acknowledged in writing that Beijing has targeted parliament.
MPs used parliamentary privilege to reveal that the case allegedly involved more than two dozen reports in which information was passed to China.
Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, linked the decision to drop charges to the requirement under the Official Secrets Act of 1911 that information is passed to an “enemy”, raising the question of whether national security witnesses, who were expected to give evidence to support the claims, had backtracked.
Parkinson insisted the CPS decision made the decision independently. However, the government has been accused of softening its approach to Beijing in the hope of improving economic relations.
Alicia Kearns, the Tory chair of the foreign affairs select committee, who employed Cash as a researcher, said: “The government has serious questions to answer. Parliament deserves answers, the country deserves answers, and obfuscation and a refusal to answer does nothing but make our democracy more vulnerable.”
Frank Ferguson, CPS head of special crime and counterterrorism, wrote to Kearns that “the evidential standard for the offence indicted is no longer met”. He added: “I appreciate that you were operating in a context in which a research group chaired by you, which had access to other parliamentarians as well as yourself, was unfortunately targeted by China as a means of obtaining information from within parliament on the then government’s policies and views in relation to China.”
Dan Jarvis, the security minister, told the Commons on Monday that the 2023 National Security Act, which replaced the Official Secrets Act, removed the “unhelpful enemy language”.
Cash said on Monday he had always been law-abiding and was “working in an area in which I was committed to promoting the interests of my country”.
Behind the story
When Chris Cash and Christopher Berry were charged with spying for China Westminster was left reeling (Fiona Hamilton writes).
For security officials and Beijing experts, the case was merely an illustration of what they had said for years about the scale and ambition of Chinese interference.
In 2022 MI5 issued a rare security alert to MPs warning that Christine Lee, a solicitor with links to politicians from each major party, had infiltrated parliament on behalf of China’s Communist Party.
The alert named Lee, who donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Labour MP Barry Gardiner, as being involved in “political interference activities on behalf of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party”. Lee denied wrongdoing and later sued MI5 but lost.
A year earlier Ken McCallum, the director-general of MI5, had said that hostile states had tried to influence ministers, MPs and political candidates. McCallum has repeatedly spoken since about Chinese interference, warning that anyone working in the political, military or technology arenas, in cutting-edge scientific research or certain export markets is a potential target.
MI5 has also publicised more than 10,000 “disguised approaches” from Chinese intelligence to Britons on LinkedIn.
Cash and Berry were formally found not guilty after prosecutors said the evidential threshold was no longer reached. Both said they were innocent and should never have been charged.
But the affair has served as another reminder to MPs of the likelihood they are being targeted.
