A formal inquiry into the collapse of the China espionage case will be held by a parliamentary committee.

Chairman of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, Matt Western MP, said there are “a lot of questions yet to be asked” and announced they would hold a “formal inquiry into the issue”.

Addressing Cabinet Office minister Chris Ward, he said: “We will be holding this inquiry as soon as we possibly can, and will he give his commitment that we will have access to ministers and civil servants or whoever we wish to come before us.”

Mr Ward insisted the Government wanted to be as transparent as possible.

He said: “I’ll come back to him on this precise mechanism of how we do that, but I’m sure people will be made available to his committee.”

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) dropped the case against Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry in September after deeming the evidence did not show China was a threat to national security.

Both men, who deny wrongdoing, had been accused of passing secrets to China.

Former security minister Tom Tugendhat suggested that if “the bureaucrats are in charge of everything”, then the UK “isn’t a democracy any more” and questioned why the Government did not do “everything” in its power to secure the prosecution of the pair.

A spokesman from Downing Street said it would have been “absurd” for the Prime Minister to step in after being told the China spy case was going to collapse.

The spokesman said: “The suggestion that the Prime Minister should have stepped in at this point is frankly absurd.

“If he was to do so, he would have been interfering in a case related to a previous government, a previous policy, previous legislation.

“In a criminal matter, it is the CPS and the DPP that, quite rightly, have independent responsibility for prosecuting cases in this country.”

The Government published 18 pages of evidence connected with the now-collapsed case yesterday evening after Sir Keir Starmer pledged to do so at Prime Minister’s Questions.

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The evidence included witness statements provided to prosecutors by Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Collins.

Mr Collins submitted one witness statement in 2023, with another two statements being filed earlier this year.

Concluding one witness statement, he wrote: “For the reasons given above, it is my assessment that the suspects’ alleged activities were prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK, and the information and material passed would be directly or indirectly useful to the Chinese state.”

In one of the statements, Mr Collins said it was “important to emphasise however, that the UK Government is committed to pursuing a positive relationship with China to strengthen understanding, cooperation and stability”.

Kemi Badenoch has accused the Government of submitting a “lovely statement about how great China was”.

Responding to the release of the deputy national security adviser’s witness statements, the Tory leader said: “They should have provided the evidence to the CPS that showed that China was a threat.

“We had loads of evidence. We’ve made repeated statements about that.

“There are examples that they could have pointed to about China hacking into Whitehall government systems. They did not provide any of that.

“Instead, what they provided was a lovely statement about how great China was. That’s an embarrassment.”

She accused Sir Keir’s administration of trying to “blame the last Government” but “it’s failing, and the witness statement is proving that what they have done has misled Parliament”.

Mrs Badenoch added: “They were informed that the spy case was collapsing.

“They could have intervened to stop it. They didn’t, because they’re too weak to stand up to China.”

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