Former security minister Tom Tugendhat exploded with fury in the Commons this morning as he demanded to know “who the hell’s side” the Government was on. Taking down a minister’s ludicrous claims about the Government’s role in the collapse of the Chinese espionage scandal, Mr Tugendhat explained why the row is so personal to him.
Standing in the Commons the top Tory blasted: “Here we have two individuals seeking to extract information from us. And the government’s response is not – as mine was – ‘do everything you can to make sure the prosecution works’, but ‘no, no, process, process’. Well who the hell’s side are you on? This isn’t about the bureaucracy this is about leadership. We’re not sent here to be civil servants, we’re sent here to lead the country and make decisions.”
Mr Tugendhat spoke candidly about how the issue is very personal to him, revealing: “My home has been broken into. My files have been ransacked. Somebody has been put into my office by a hostile state. And two parties [The LibDems and Labour] are playing politics with it.
“This is the national security of the United Kingdom. The elected people of Tonbridge chose me – they may have chosen wrong but they did – the elected people of other parts of the United Kingdom chose everybody else in this house. It’s up to them to choose who represents them.
“I feel nothing but fondness for the minister and I’m very sorry he’s been sent out on his first outing to defend the indefensible, because what he’s got the position of doing now is to effectively say he’s ‘not a politician he’s a bureaucrat, there’s nothing he can do and frankly he shouldn’t even be here in the first place’!
“That seems to be the Prime Minister’s line – former attorneys general have got up and prosecuted on the state’s behalf. This Attorney General and this Prime Minister have said ‘not on my watch, not worth the effort’.”
Prosecuting the government, Tory MP Neil O’Brien – who was also named in the witness statements – tore apart the minister’s claim that the documents written by the Deputy National Security Adviser and published last night were entirely based on the previous Tory government’s policy.
Mr O’Brien pointed out that the two statements submitted by the current Labour government this year included lines from Starmer’s own election manifesto.
The Tory spokesman says: “They weaken the case. They make it less clear that China is a threat to our national security – that’s one of the things that changed.”
Last night’s publication of the witness statements revealed that after Labour came to power, the DNSA changed his witness statement evidence to add additional emphasis on the need to pursue “a positive economic relationship with China”.
Mr O’Brien demanded fresh answers on a number of unanswered questions, including what was requested by the CPS to ensure the spy case could proceed to court, why that information was refused, and called on the government to publish all correspondence and minutes.
He warned that unless the Government comes forward with this information, people will ask “what this Government has got to hide”.
He also pointed out that we don’t yet know why the Government failed to meet the required evidence threshold from the CPS, and demands to hear that explanation from the Government today.
Slamming the Government for allowing the Civil Service to “decide” to make decisions independent of the Government, he fumed: “No, no, no, Mr Speaker, the Civil Service does not get to decide anything. Ministers decide!”