Starmer only read China spy case witness statements this morning, No 10 says
Here are the main lines from the NO 10 post-PMQs lobby briefing.
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The PM’s spokesperson explained why the government was publishing its China spy case witness statements now, when yesterday officials were saying the CPS were opposed to this. The spokesperson said:
Prior to last night, the CPS had made clear that witnesses have an expectation that their evidence will not be publicly discussed in those circumstances.
The CPS had also advised that to do so, or to do so in some cases, but not in others, would likely affect the confidence of witnesses in coming forward and hamper the interests of justice.
However, given the CPS has now greenlit the publication, we will release the three statements from the DNSA (deputy national security adviser Matt Collins) after a short process. We will release the fullest version possible.
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The spokesperson said three witness statements would be published. The first substantive witness statement was submitted by Collins under the previous Conservative government in December 2023, and two additional ones were provided by him in February and August this year.
Key events
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GB News viewers more likely to wrongly believe net migration to UK rising, study finds
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Badenoch says Starmer should have intervened when he learned CPS about to drop China spy prosecution
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UK sanctions Russia’s largest oil firms in latest pro-Ukraine measures
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Dominic Cummings claims ‘everybody in Whitehall’ knows threat from China far worse than government admits publicly
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Gerry Adams says he is considering legal action to stop UK passing law stopping him getting compensation for internment
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Tories say it is ‘outrageous’ Angela Rayner got £17,000 severance payment after resigning as DPM
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Farage complains about not being able to speak at PMQs, as other parties criticise him
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Starmer only read China spy case witness statements this morning, No 10 says
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Cleverly accuses Starmer of misquoting him on China
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PMQs – snap verdict
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Starmer’s opening statement at PMQs on China spy case
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Starmer says not putting political pressure on CPS is ‘proud tradition’, as he knows from being DPP during expenses scandal
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Starmer sidesteps Lib Dem call for him to order security assessment into threat Elon Musk poses to UK democracy
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Starmer says Badenoch’s claims about China spy case ‘entirely baseless’
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Starmer says last government witness submitted in August, before controversial meeting attended by Jonathan Powell in September
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Starmer says ‘substantive’ government evidence for China spy trial was provided by last Tory administration
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Starmer says government intends to publish in full its three witness statements in China spy case
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Starmer condemns ‘unequivocally’ death threats against Nigel Farage, and welcomes conviction of man responsible
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Starmer faces Badenoch at PMQs
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Tory claims about ‘millions’ of people getting Motability cars for anxiety or ADHD wholly wrong, experts say
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People in poor health more likely to vote Reform UK, research suggests
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Lib Dems urge Reeves to rule out extending freeze on income tax thresholds
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Shadow chancellor Mel Stride claims UK in ‘tax doom loop’ and Reeves to blame
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Pressure on Downing Street to release evidence in collapsed China spy case
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Brexit has had ‘severe and long lasting’ impact on economy, says Reeves, as she confirms taxes to rise in budget
GB News viewers more likely to wrongly believe net migration to UK rising, study finds
A larger proportion of people who frequently watch GB News wrongly believe that net migration to the UK is increasing than those of other major channels, according to a study examining public attitudes to broadcasting impartiality. Michael Savage has the story.
PPE Medpro, the company linked to Baroness Michelle Mone, has not met the deadline to pay back almost £122m to the government, the health secretary has said.
The department for health and social care successfully sued PPE Medpro, a consortium led by Lady Mone’s husband Doug Barrowman, earlier this year over claims it breached a deal for 25 million surgical gowns during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a ruling earlier this month, Lady Justice Cockerill found that the company had breached the contract as the gowns were not sterile, and ordered it to pay back £121,999,219.20 by 4pm on Wednesday.
After the deadline passed, Wes Streeting said that PPE Medpro “has failed to meet the deadline to pay” and that interest on the sum was “now accruing daily”.
At a time of national crisis, PPE Medpro sold the previous government substandard kit and pocketed taxpayers’ hard-earned cash. We will pursue PPE Medpro with everything we’ve got to get these funds back where they belong – in our NHS.
You can read my colleague David Conn’s analysis on the uphill battle the government faces in recovering the funds here:
Badenoch says Starmer should have intervened when he learned CPS about to drop China spy prosecution
Kemi Badenoch says Keir Starmer should have intervened when he learned the CPS was about to drop the China spy prosecution. Referring to a line that emerged at the post-PMQs lobby briefing (see 2.15pm), she said:
There we have it. The Prime Minister KNEW the China spying case was about to collapse and did NOTHING because he’s got no backbone. He’s too weak to stand up for our national security.
A shameful dereliction of duty.
Starmer’s argument is that politicians should not intervene in CPS decisions. (See 12.54pm.)
The Spectator has a cover story this week by Tim Shipman, its political editor, about the threat to the UK from Chinese spying. His report backs up what Dominic Cummings told the Times (see 4.17pm) about the problem being far more serious than the government acknowledges. Shipman says:
Four highly credible sources in the upper echelons of the last government, both political figures and officials, have revealed that far worse scandals [than the one involving the two alleged spies passing on information from Westminster] have been hushed up. One said: ‘There were two very serious cases, one involving China and one Russia, which were swept under the carpet. There was a serious loss of technical data.’ The case involving Russia was suppressed, the source claimed, to avoid embarrassing a former prime minister.
Shipman also says that Matthew Collins, the deputy national security adviser who wrote the government witness statements for the China spy prosecution that was dropped, thought he had given the Crown Prosecution Service what they needed.
To muddy the waters further, friends of Collins say he did provide evidence which would have been sufficient and he ‘doesn’t understand’ why the case was dropped. ‘He provided all of these evidence statements. He was told by the CPS that this was exactly what they needed, and then at the last minute they said they were not pursuing the prosecution.’ This individual added: ‘The guilty men and women are in fact in the CPS. They’re the ones who’ve dropped the ball.’
But Shipman claims No 10 was at fault too.
In truth, both No. 10 and the CPS are at fault. The judgement in the recent Bulgarian spying case showed that there was no need to prove China an enemy, only to convince a jury China was a threat – so the CPS could have pressed on. Sources close to the PM insist Collins couldn’t contradict the Tory policy towards Beijing at the time, which designated it a strategic competitor rather than an enemy. But Labour could equally well have chosen the legion of quotes from the strategic defence and security review, from Tory ministers and intelligence chiefs, that China was a ‘threat’. They chose not to.
The full article should be available here shortly.
UK sanctions Russia’s largest oil firms in latest pro-Ukraine measures
The government has sanctioned Russia’s biggest oil producer Rosneft as part of its latest set of measures targeting Russia’s economy amid the war in Ukraine, PA Media reports. PA says:
Foreign secretary Yvette Cooper announced Rosneft, along with Lukoil – two of the world’s largest energy companies – would face restrictions from the UK.
The Foreign Office said the two firms export 3.1m barrels of oil a day. Rosneft, Russia’s largest firm, is responsible for 6% of global oil production, and makes up nearly half of Russian oil produced.
Other action was taken against the so-called “shadow fleet”, which allows Russia to export oil.
The sanctions stop UK businesses and individuals from trading with the named Russian entities.
On Monday Steve Witkoff paid tribute to the “incredible” role played by Jonathan Powell, the PM’s national security adviser accused by the Tories of sabotaging the China spy prosecution, in getting the Middle East peace process agreed. In the New Statesman cover story this week, looking at the role played by Powell and Tony Blair in that negotiation, Freddie Hayward explains what sets Powell apart.
Here’s an extract.
As one figure who knows Powell well put it to me, he is an “Elizabethan privateer” by inclination, distrusted by Whitehall for his independence – “the Institute for Government’s worst nightmare” – but also unusually effective and circumspect in his dealings …
Britain’s influence – such as it was – came largely through personal relationships: Powell with Witkoff and, before the reshuffle, David Lammy with Gulf foreign ministers. Powell worked closely with Witkoff to clarify the final agreement, bringing the three plans together in what one senior British official described as a “Venn diagram”. It was this work, behind the scenes, that explains Witkoff’s public thanks to Powell on 13 October as Trump landed in Israel. “This is sofa diplomacy,” one trusted British diplomatic adviser put it to me. “Powell can operate in this world. If it wasn’t for him, we’d be irrelevant.”
Dominic Cummings claims ‘everybody in Whitehall’ knows threat from China far worse than government admits publicly
Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, has said that the word “threat” does not even begin to describe how much damage China is doing to Britain.
In an interview with the Times, he said that China has been accessing UK government state secrets for years and that the situation is far worse than people realise.
He also said that, when he was working in Downing Street, he was briefed about “vast amounts of data classified as extremely secret and extremely dangerous for any foreign entity to control was compromised” as a result of Chinese spying.
Cummings, who also told the Times that he was warned when he was in No 10 that he would risk prosecution if he revealed secret information, said it was “ludicrous” that the China spy prosecution could not go ahead because the government would not provide evidence saying China was an enemy.
He told the Times:
Anyone who has been read in at a high level with the intelligence services on China knows that the word threat doesn’t even begin to cover it.
The degree of penetration in espionage, in all kinds of operations, penetration of critical national infrastructure, theft of intellectual property, the whole range of things is absolutely extraordinary. A hundred times worse than it is in the public domain.
Everybody who has been briefed on the critical analyses of these things from the intelligence services knows this is true. The idea that it is somehow a difficult semantic question of whether to define them as a threat, or how much of a threat, is absolutely puerile nonsense. And everybody in the heart of Whitehall knows this.
Cummings also said that for years British governments have played down the security threat posed by China because they have decided to prioritise the economic relationship.
Gerry Adams says he is considering legal action to stop UK passing law stopping him getting compensation for internment
Yesterday the government published its Northern Ireland Troubles bill, and it confirmed that the legislation will include provisions to block Gerry Adams from receiving compensation over being interned in the 1970s.
Today Adams, the former Sinn Féin president who is widely regarded as having been a leading IRA figure during the Troubles (even though he has always denied this), said he is considering court action to stop this.
He said:
I have instructed my legal team that it is my intention to pursue legal action against Keir Starmer’s decision to retrospectively change a law which a Conservative government broke over 50 years ago …
In 2020 the British supreme court determined that I was wrongfully interned for a period in the 1970s. The decision by the Court was explicit. Interim custody orders not authorised and approved by the secretary of state were illegal. It is believed that upwards of 400 other internees are similarly affected.
The British government, which knew it was in the wrong at that time, knowingly broke its own law.
In January Keir Starmer made it clear that he would look at ‘every conceivable way’ to ensure that I and others impacted by this did not receive compensation.
Yesterday the British government produced legislation which upholds the quashing of the convictions but denies compensation. This is clearly discriminatory. Once again the British state changes the rules to protect its security personnel while denying others equality of treatment.
That an Irish government would collude in this is disgraceful …
The British want to close the door on their past actions. Like many others I will be speaking to my legal team in the next few days to examine what options here and within Europe are open to us.
Tories say it is ‘outrageous’ Angela Rayner got £17,000 severance payment after resigning as DPM
Angela Rayner’s receipt of a ministerial severance payment of nearly £17,000 after quitting Government over her tax affairs has been branded “outrageous” by the Conservatives, PA Media reports. PA says:
She resigned as deputy prime minister, housing secretary and deputy Labour leader last month after an independent ethics probe found she had breached the ministerial code over her underpayment of stamp duty on a seaside flat.
Rayner had referred herself to the standards watchdog for investigation after she admitted she had paid as much as £40,000 less surcharge than she should have done on the purchase in May.
In September, she received the £16,876 severance pay cabinet ministers are entitled to when leaving office. It is equivalent to a quarter of their annual ministerial salary.
It was before new Labour rules came into effect this week under which members of government found to have committed a “serious breach” of the ministerial code would be expected to forgo or repay their “golden goodbye”.
A spokesperson for Rayner said: “There is a world of difference between making an honest mistake and a severe breach of the ministerial code, and as the independent ethics adviser’s investigation concluded, Angela acted with integrity and an exemplary commitment to public service.”
It was suggested the new Labour rules would not have applied to her automatic eligibility for the severance pay because her ministerial code breach was not deemed serious.
But the Tories claimed rule-breaking was being rewarded.
Shadow housing secretary James Cleverly said: “It’s outrageous Angela Rayner has been rewarded for dodging tax. Ordinary people’s tax money has been funneled straight into her pocket.
“We asked the government about this in Parliament and they refused to answer the question. And now we know why: she’s getting a windfall that covers nearly half the tax bill she tried to avoid.
“Rayner has long campaigned for transparency on tax affairs. Clearly, that doesn’t apply to her own cash. As always with Labour, it’s one rule for them, and another for everyone else. The PM should find a backbone and ensure wrongdoing is not rewarded.”
Farage complains about not being able to speak at PMQs, as other parties criticise him
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is complaining about PMQs. He has posted this on social media.
Yet another session of PMQs where I get mentioned but can’t respond. There is not much point me even being there.
Yet another session of PMQs where I get mentioned but can’t respond. There is not much point me even being there.
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) October 15, 2025
Farage may have been reading this article by Theo Bertram, director of the Social Market Foundation thinktank, arguing that Farage should be called more at PMQs so that he can get more scrutiny. Betram says:
Over the last year, Badenoch has asked around 200 questions, Ed Davey around 70, Green MPs nine, and Nigel Farage just six. If those questions had been distributed according to their share of the opinion polls, rather than the number of MPs, Farage would have asked 120 questions, and the others between 40 and 60 each. In other words, Badenoch has 33 times more questions than Farage because of parliamentary process, when Farage should have twice as many questions as Badenoch if PMQs reflected current opinion polls.
Still, Farage is taking consolation from a new MRP poll by Electoral Calculus that suggests Reform UK would win a majority of 84 if there were an election now. Reform says the 36% support it is getting in this poll is its highest polling figure yet.
Gabriel Pogrund, the Sunday Times’ award-winning Whitehall editor, was one of the reporters who produced the story about Jonathan Powell attending a meeting in September that allegedly was linked to the government suppressing evidence that would have enabled the China spy trial to go ahead.
In their report, Pogrund and Caroline Wheeler wrote:
Early last month, Powell, the national security adviser, convened a top secret meeting of mandarins from across the government. He used the gathering to discuss the potential diplomatic and security consequences of the trial, but also raised the evidence that Collins, the government’s key witness, was due to put forward.
According to Whitehall sources, Powell said that Collins would draw upon National Security Strategy 2025, which was published in June. It refers to China as a “geostrategic challenge” whose actions have “the potential to have a significant effect on the lives of British people”. It does not describe the People’s Republic as an enemy …
It is said that Powell left attendees with the understanding that Collins’s witness statement would operate within the language of the report, that is, it would not describe China as an enemy. Civil servants were later told that Collins did not draw upon more detailed, and damning, security assessments about China’s activities made available by the Home Office, which a senior government source said would have made it “very clear that China met the definition of what the legislation [the Official Secrets Act] requires”.
Commenting on PMQs, Pogrund says:
Pleased the PM has admitted the meeting we reported on did take place.
As we spoke to people with first hand knowledge of it, that wasn’t in doubt.
Question is how Powell apparently knew the witness statement would stop short of calling China an enemy if he had no involvement and the deputy NSA compiled it in a bunker.
As for publication of witness statement, though no doubt welcome and good for transparency, I am not sure it resolves the biggest question.
It is – once again – this. On what basis, following what conversations and advice, did the deputy NSA exercise his discretion and *decide* not to help the CPS with a request which it, by definition, believed to be legally reasonable? Are we really to believe he just personally chose not to assist prosecutors? If he did, why?
The Lib Dems have restated their call for an inquiry into the collapse of the China spy trial. Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader, said:
The government must bolster their publication of witness statements and put all the legal advice they’ve received on this case on the public record – including advice on what evidence would be needed for this trial to go ahead.
Number 10 must also urgently launch an independent inquiry so we can finally get to the bottom of what actually happened in this labyrinthine case.
At the post-PMQs lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson was also slightly evasive on whether or not income tax, national insurance or VAT could go up in the budget. In its manifesto, Labour said it would not raise these taxes. The manifesto still “stands”, No 10 said (using the curious wording adopted by ministers at Labour’s conference). But the spokesperson also said the government would also make the numbers add up.
Jason Groves, the Daily Mail’s political editor, says:
No 10 very slippery on whether Labour’s tax pledges still stand. Asked if income tax, VAT or national insurance could rise in the Budget, the PM’s spokesman said: ‘I’m not going to speculate on the Budget but as the Chancellor said today, the numbers will always add up.
Starmer only read China spy case witness statements this morning, No 10 says
Here are the main lines from the NO 10 post-PMQs lobby briefing.
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The PM’s spokesperson explained why the government was publishing its China spy case witness statements now, when yesterday officials were saying the CPS were opposed to this. The spokesperson said:
Prior to last night, the CPS had made clear that witnesses have an expectation that their evidence will not be publicly discussed in those circumstances.
The CPS had also advised that to do so, or to do so in some cases, but not in others, would likely affect the confidence of witnesses in coming forward and hamper the interests of justice.
However, given the CPS has now greenlit the publication, we will release the three statements from the DNSA (deputy national security adviser Matt Collins) after a short process. We will release the fullest version possible.
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The spokesperson said three witness statements would be published. The first substantive witness statement was submitted by Collins under the previous Conservative government in December 2023, and two additional ones were provided by him in February and August this year.
Cleverly accuses Starmer of misquoting him on China
James Cleverly, the Tory former foreign secretary, used a point of order after PMQs to say he had been misquoted by the prime minister.
Referring to what Keir Starmer said about Cleverly’s stance on China (see 12.13pm), Cleverly said:
In the statement that the security minister made earlier this week, and then again, in answer to a question, I have been misquoted.
It has been said that I, in a speech at Mansion House, said that describing China as a threat was impractical and, most importantly, unwise.
The quote was that describing China as one word, or our policy in one word, is impossible, impractical and most importantly, unwise.
I went on to say that our policy first, we will strengthen our national security protections wherever Beijing’s actions pose a threat to our people or prosperity.
I finished by saying, and when there are tensions with other objectives, we will always put our national security first.
PMQs – snap verdict
PMQs is not an equal contest. The prime minister gets the last word, which helps, but far more significantly he has executive advantage – information and power – not available to the leader of the opposition. Today Keir Starmer took full advantage of that, surprising MPs with a lengthy opening statement at the start of PMQs. (See 1.21pm.) He was in command right from the start and Kemi Badenoch never seriously challenged him.
Much of what Starmer said was not new. The government has been blaming the Tories for the collapse of the prosecution for days, saying if the Official Secrets Act had been updated earlier, a successful prosecution might be able to go ahead. But what was most striking about Starmer’s performance was the confidence he displayed in rebutting charges of interference, or a cover-up. The fact that he is promising to publish the three witness statements in full shows that he is fairly certain they won’t be incriminating. His assertion that the “substantive” witness statement was the one written when the Tories were in office was significant. His declaration that the final one came before the September meeting attended by Jonathan Powell undermines claims that Powell made an improper intervention. Ministers with something to hide resort to evasion; but Starmer was unambiguous in dismissing the Tory claims as “baseless”. And he was perhaps most impressive right at the end, when he spoke about avoiding political interference in prosecutions being an article of faith for him. (See 12.54pm.)
He was 90% convincing. But Starmer did not explain why, if the evidence was sufficient to justify charging the alleged spies under the Official Secrets Act in 2023, a decision was taken two years later to drop the case. The CPS has explained that on the grounds that the case law changed as a result of a ruling in a separate spy case in the spring, raising the threshold needed for a conviction. Legal experts say the court of appeal ruling in Ivanova and Rossev in fact did the opposite, lowering the threshold and making prosecution easier. If the CPS is right, it needs to explain its case more convincingly.
Badenoch gave no ground and ploughed on regardless. A reasonable person would have listened to Starmer’s case, and decided it might be best waiting until the witness statements are out before performing a judgment. But PMQs does not really allow for that sort of approach, and it is not Badenoch’s style anyway, and she just kept bashing away. Given the paucity of the evidence at her disposal, it was quite an impressive example of resilience, and Tory MPs may have liked it. But she wasn’t winning the argument.
Starmer’s opening statement at PMQs on China spy case
Here is the opening statement that Keir Starmer made at the start of PMQs about the China spy case.
May I update the house or the China spy case. I am deeply disappointed by the outcome. We wanted to see prosecutions. Mr Speaker, I know just how seriously, rightly, you take these matters. National security will always be the first priority of this government. We will always defend against espionage.
In recent weeks, there have been baseless accusations put about by the party opposite. Let me set out the facts.
The relevant period was when these offences took place. That was under the Conservative government between the year of 2021 and 2023.
This period was bookended by the integrated review of 2021, the beginning of the period, and the refresh of that review in 2023, setting out that policy.
These statements of government policy were very carefully worded to not describe China as an enemy.
Instead they stated increased national security protections where China poses a threat and that the then government would engage with China to leave room open for constructive and predictable relations.
The deputy national security adviser [DSNA], Matt Collins, set out the then government’s position in a substantive witness statement in 2023, which was subsequently supplemented by two further short statements.
The cabinet secretary assures me that the DSNA faithfully set out the policy of the then Tory government.
I know first hand that the DSNA is a civil servant of the utmost integrity. And those opposite who worked with him, I’m sure, would agree with that assessment.
Under this government, no minister or special adviser played any role in the provision of evidence.
I can’t say what the position was of the previous government in relation to the involvement of ministers or special advisers. If the leader of the opposition knows the answer to that question, and I suspect that she does, I invite her to update the house.
Last night the Crown Prosecution Service clarified that, in their view, the decision whether to publish the witness statements of the DSNA is for the government.
I’ve therefore carefully considered this question this morning. And, after legal advice, I have decided to publish the witness statement here.
Given the given the information contained, we will conduct a short process.
But I want to publish the witness statements in full.
Let me say this; to be clear, had the Conservatives been quicker in updating our legislation, a review that started in 2015, these individuals could have been prosecuted and we would not be where.
Starmer says not putting political pressure on CPS is ‘proud tradition’, as he knows from being DPP during expenses scandal
Tom Tugendhat, the Tory former security minister, got the last question, and he used it to ask about the China spy case.
He said the key question was whether or not the CPS’s decision to charge the two men with spying was valid in the first place.
The real question in this whole debate is whether or not the DPP charged legally and properly. If they did, then the OSA [Official Secrets Act] is valid and all this talk about the National Security Act that I introduced is completely irrelevant.
If they did not. Why is he not charging his successor with abuse of power?
We know the reality, although he has answered the question about evidence, the real question is what political direction did this government give to their officials before they went to give evidence?
In response to the claim that the government gave political orders to prosecutors over this, Starmer replied: “Absolutely not.”
He went on:
I was the chief prosecutor in five years, and I can say in that five years, which included three years under the coalition government, when we were taking difficult decisions on MPs expenses, not once, not once, was I subjected to political pressure of any sort from anyone.
That is the tradition of this country. It’s a proud tradition. It’s one I hold as prime minister, just as I believe it when I was director of public prosecutions.
