UK Parliament researcher held by UK police for China spying, says report

A researcher at the UK Parliament has been arrested by the UK police on the charges of spying, The Sunday Times reported.  He was suspected of working for China.  UK police, who arrested the men in March, said, “Officers from the Metropolitan Police Service arrested two men on 13 March on suspicion of offences under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act, 1911”.

The Sunday Times said the suspect in his twenties had contacts with MPs (members of Parliament) from the ruling Conservative Party while working as a parliamentary researcher. They included Security Minister Tom Tugendhat and Alicia Kearns, the chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee.

Hours after the arrest was made public, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi, told Chinese premier Li Qiang he had “significant concerns” about “interference” from Beijing. Sunak said he’d confronted the Chinese official on the issue. “I raised a range of different concerns that we have in areas of disagreement, and in particular, my very strong concerns about any interference in our parliamentary democracy, which is obviously unacceptable,” Sunak said.