An alleged Chinese spy with links to Prince Andrew has been named after an anonymity order was lifted. The government is facing an urgent question in the House of Commons on the issue this afternoon.
Monday 16 December 2024 16:27, UK
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Sir Keir Starmer welcomes the decision by Royal Courts of Justice to allow the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo to be named.
Mr Yang – who says he’s “done nothing wrong or unlawful” – had been living behind an anonymity order until today.
It was lifted amid growing expectations that an MP would use parliamentary privilege to name him in the House of Commons.
The PM’s spokesperson said: “We respect the independence of our courts and, as I say, the first duty of every government is national security, and we welcome the court’s decision to uphold the Home Office’s position in relation to the exclusion of this individual.”
Mr Yang was first stopped from entering the UK, where he moved in 2002 as a student, in 2021 on security grounds.
Asked whether the PM believed the court had been influenced by political tensions when it lifted the order, the spokesperson said: “No.”
While MPs debate accusations of Chinese espionage in the Commons, Beijing’s foreign affairs ministry has issued a statement about the case of alleged spy Yang Tengbo.
A spokesperson said: “China has always acted in an upright and honest manner and has never engaged in any deception or interference, so it is not worthwhile to refute this kind of groundless speculation which is based on one’s own judgement.”
Tory shadow home secretary Chris Philp uses his response to the government minister to have a dig at Labour’s approach to China.
He criticises Sir Keir Starmer’s meeting with Xi Jinping at a G20 summit last month, from which the prime minister emerged keen to talk up potential areas of collaboration – like climate change.
‘These are important matters’
Security minister Dan Jarvis says broadly on the threats posed by China and other states, “these are important matters that should not divide us”.
But he takes issue with the “characterisation” of Sir Keir’s meeting – and takes a now predictable pop at what Labour say was an inconsistent approach from successive Tory governments.
Referring to former prime minister Lord David Cameron’s efforts to foster ties with Beijing’s president, Mr Jarvis says: “At least he didn’t take him to the pub for a pint.”
Security minister Dan Jarvis is fielding questions on the threat of alleged Chinese spying and espionage on behalf of the government.
“Where there are individuals who pose a threat to our national security, we’re absolutely committed to using the full range of powers available to disrupt them,” he says.
Those powers include prosecutions, exclusions, sanctions, and diplomacy.
He refuses to offer much on the case of Yang Tengbo, an alleged Chinese spy who was named today after a court lifted an anonymity order, citing potential further proceedings.
But he warns: “This case does not exist in a vacuum.”
Mr Jarvis refers to recent comments by the boss of MI5, who said Britain faces the “most complex threat environment he has ever seen” – notably from the likes of China, Russia, and Iran.
New powers to combat foreign agents coming next year
He says the government plans to start implementing a foreign influence registration scheme, which will give ministers more power to police individuals believed to be trying to exert influence on behalf of a foreign state, next summer.
It was something the last Tory government had started work on.
“We will say more about this soon, but we intend to lay regulations in the new year and commence the scheme in the summer,” Mr Jarvis adds.
The government is facing an urgent question about the spying group alleged Chinese agent Yang Tengbo is said to belong to.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, has been granted an urgent question on the United Front Work Department.
The question’s wording reads: “To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement on the extent of United Front Work Department operations within the UK.”
Watch live in the stream below or at the top of this page.
A quick detour from the world of international espionage and to one even more worthy of a thrilling spy caper: local government.
Angela Rayner has this afternoon been outlining Labour’s plans to empower local authorities.
That includes seeing smaller councils, like district ones, combined into bigger “strategic authorities” with more sway over their areas.
Critics have said the move risks eroding the most local councils, but the deputy prime minister insisted it would “bring new efficiency and accountability” across the board.
But Ms Rayner has also admitted councils far along in the process of being overhauled may have to go without elections in May.
‘We may look at postponing’
Local elections are due to take place in May, but she said in some places they could be delayed by several months or even a year.
“We’re asking people to come forward as quickly as possible, and if they’re near enough to a deal, and they say ‘we just need a few more months’, then we can put that system in place,” she said.
“If they came to us and said ‘that’s where we’re at’, then we may look at postponing, but it wouldn’t be for longer than a couple of months, a year.”
Professor Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute, has been speaking with us about the naming of alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.
He says while the matter is of some concern, Mr Tengbo “is not a spy in the conventional sense of the word”.
If he were, you’d expect MI5 to be looking to “interview him extensively”.
He is in fact an agent dedicated to “cultivating influence” rather than “stealing national secrets”.
Working on behalf of the Chinese government, he’s on a mission to “ensure influential people in the UK take a positive view of China”.
A reminder the government will later face questions from MPs about the Chinese spying group Yang Tengbo is said to belong to.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, has been granted an urgent question on the United Front Work Department.
The question’s wording reads: “To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement on the extent of United Front Work Department operations within the UK.”
The UFWD is the group Mr Yang – who has been named after a court lifted an anonymity order – is said to belong to.
The earliest this question could be held is 3.30pm – however timings in the Commons are fluid.
You can watch and follow live in the Politics Hub shortly.
Professor Anthony Glees, an intelligence and security expert from the University of Buckingham, has been speaking to Sky News after Yang Tengbo was named as an alleged Chinese spy who is said to have been close to Prince Andrew.
He says: “It’s clear that Prince Andrew has, unbeknown to himself, perhaps, been a risk to our national security.
“And naming [Mr Yang] will send a shudder down many people’s spine.”
Asked about the statement in which Mr Yang denies being a spy and calls his treatment by the UK “unfair”, Professor Glees says it’s “not worth the paper it was written on”.
‘Serious alarm bells’
He says that hostile states using “long-term penetration” lasting decades is common.
The academic also says the statement “may delude people into believing that influential Chinese people have no connection to the secret Chinese state”.
He adds: “In fact, there is an intelligence law in China that says that every member of the Communist Party of China has a duty to accept intelligence tasking if the state demands it of them.”
When it comes to Mr Yang’s relationship with the prince, Professor Glees says it is not clear what the “quid pro quo” was here.
He points out it was known the prince was short of money – and the Chinese would “certainly” have known it.
“That will raise serious alarm bells… as well, because that would be an obvious problem if money changed hands in return for influencing,” the professor said.
There is no indication at this point that any money exchanged hands.
With the news that we can now name an alleged Chinese spy as Yang Tengbo, home affairs editor Jason Farrell has some more information on him.
He says Mr Yang, 50, ran a consultancy firm called Hampton Group International.
The Chinese-born man moved to the UK in 2002 as a student, going to the University of York, and was given indefinite leave to remain since 2013.
In China, he worked as a civil servant.
Hampton Group International is an advisory group that helped with relationships between the UK and China, Jason says.
“He set up a scheme that worked very much in the same way as, the Pitch@Palace, which was Prince Andrew’s scheme,” he adds.
“So [Mr Yang] kind of replicated that in China.”
Mr Yang first came to the security services’ attention when he was stopped entering the UK in November 2021 and his phone was seized, with messages from Prince Andrew and the royal’s confidants were found.
One adviser told Mr Yang that he “sat at the very top of a tree that many people would have liked to have been on”, in reference to his relationship with Prince Andrew.
After the seizure of the phone, the home secretary at the time said they had “reason to believe that you are engaging or have previously engaged in covert and deceptive activity on behalf of the United Front Work Department that is an arm of the Communist Party of China”.
It is not known precisely when the Duke of York and Mr Yang met, but a statement released by Andrew said the pair met through “official channels”.
It is believed they grew so close that Mr Yang was invited to the royal’s birthday party in 2020, visited Buckingham Palace twice and also entered St James’s Palace and Windsor Castle at his invitation.
He was also told by Prince Andrew’s aide Dominic Hampshire that Mr Yang could act on the duke’s behalf when dealing with potential investors in China.
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