Security minister dodges question on Chinese email hack

The Government has said that it is not “shying away” from the threat posed by China after MPs expressed anger at being kept in the dark about a hack on their emails.

MPs aired their frustration in the House of Commons yesterday after i revealed the Government had learnt about a major Chinese hack on parliamentarians two years ago but did not warn them until last month.

A leaked FBI document showed the UK Government had been informed by its US counterparts about the attack in 2022.

Pressing the security minister, Tom Tugendhat, on the findings, Tory MP Tim Loughton said: “We had the scandal about the hacking of MPs email accounts back in March.

“We subsequently learnt that the FBI informed our government of this incident two years ago as well as other foreign governments who had legislators who were also affected. Why has it taken two years for us to be told about a serious security breach?” Mr Tugendhat (inset) did not answer the question directly, but said: “The reality is we face threats from around the world and many of them, sadly, are emerging from Beijing today. We know this, we have seen it, and many in this house feel it, so this is not something we are shying away from.”

This was the closest a sitting Cabinet member has come recently to labelling China a threat, rather than an “epoch-defining challenge”.

Mr Tugendhat is understood to be pushing for China’s inclusion in the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Register Scheme – against the will of his Cabinet colleagues – which would involve putting stricter measures on Chinese foreign agents under new national security laws.

The Deputy Prime Minister, Oliver Dowden, announced last month that three MPs and a peer had been targeted by a Chinese state-affiliated hacking group designated “Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) 31” between 2021 and 2022. It was later revealed by i that at least 30 UK parliamentarians had been affected.

Labour MP Chris Bryant said he was “not convinced” by the Government’s response, adding: “When the Deputy Prime Minister came to see us a few weeks ago he didn’t say anything new. He announced things about events which had happened two years ago.

“If we are to surely take these issues seriously we have to have an up-to-date and present account of the activities of the Chinese state.”