MPs have demanded that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) reveal why charges against two men accused of spying for China were suddenly dropped.
Christopher Cash, 30, a parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, 33, were due to go on trial next week accused of offences under the Official Secrets Act.
But earlier this month the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced it was dropping the case, saying only that “the evidential standard for the offence indicted is no longer met”.
Now the chairmen of the Home Affairs and Justice select committees have written a joint letter to Stephen Parkinson, the DPP, to demand a fuller explanation behind the decision.
Karen Bradley MP, a Conservative, and Andy Slaughter MP, Labour, say in the letter that the explanation “falls some way short of the level of detail that is acceptable for a case of this seriousness and one that has a bearing on the ability of parliamentarians to perform their duties”.
The letter goes on: “It is the role of our committees to scrutinise the effectiveness of the criminal justice system and to hold to account those responsible for any serious failings.
“A clear explanation for the dropping of charges in this case is required in order to inform an assessment of whether there have been any such failings.”
The MPs asked for a response by Oct 8.
Mr Cash, from Whitechapel, London, was alleged to have “obtained, collected, recorded, published or communicated notes, documents or information” that might have been “directly or indirectly useful to an enemy”, between January 2022 and February 2023.
Mr Berry, from Witney, Oxfordshire, faced the same charge over the period from December 2021 to February 2023.
Scotland Yard had said the foreign state to which the charges related was China.
The decision to drop the case at the eleventh hour drew intense criticism from parliamentarians across the political spectrum.
One theory is that the Government’s refusal to declare China an enemy state, alongside Russia and Iran, left the CPS with no choice.
Dan Jarvis, the security minister, told Parliament that he was “extremely disappointed” that the case would not go to trial.
He said: “Now, many members will be as extremely disappointed as I am that there will now not be a trial. The decision not to proceed with this prosecution is an independent one for the CPS to make in its role as the UK’s independent prosecuting authority.
“However, I want to be clear that the Government remains gravely concerned about the threat of Chinese espionage.”
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the Commons who had previously told MPs that two people had been charged on a matter “relating to national security”, said he was “very unhappy”.
“I am a very unhappy Speaker with what’s happened. The fact that for two years, two years, and it’s taken until today for somebody to withdraw this case, that is not … good enough.”
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said he was concerned that charges of “what appears to be extremely serious espionage” had “all of a sudden and with no explanation been dropped”.
“This House and the country needs to know what exactly has changed,” he said.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory party leader who has been sanctioned by China, accused the Government of going soft in pursuit of a trade deal and suggested the CPS had been leant on to drop the case.
Following the decision not to proceed, The Telegraph revealed that the CPS had confirmed its belief that the China Research Group of MPs had been targeted by Beijing.
In a letter to Alicia Kearns, a Tory MP and member of the group, Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS special crime and counter-terrorism division, said the case had been dropped because the evidential standard was 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.”
The letter appeared to confirm for the first time that prosecutors believe China is targeting MPs to obtain information, beyond a series of cyber attacks reported by the Government in March 2024.
