Director of public prosecutions rejects claim Labour manifesto quote killed off successful China spy case prosecution – as it happened

Stephen Parkinson. Photograph: HoC

6.48pm GMT

Early evening summary

• Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, has rejected claims that the inclusion of a line about Labour’s policy towards China, quoting from its manifesto, killed off the prospect of the alleged China spies being prosecuted. (See 5.42pm.) The ‘Labour manifesto quote’ in one of the witness statements has been cited by Tories as evidence to support their claim that the government intervened to collapse the trial. In evidence to a parliamentary committee, Parkinson and other witnesses did not say anything to substantiate these allegations. Instead, they backed the government’s argument that the case collapsed because espionage legislation had not been updated and because it was the previous government’s policy not to call China a national security threat.

• Christopher Berry, the man at the heart of a controversial and now-abandoned Chinese espionage case, appeared to be aware that he was supplying information to a non-commercial client, according to messages seen by the Guardian.

• Nigel Farage has defended remarks made by a Reform MP who said seeing adverts full of black and Asian people “drives her mad”, arguing the intention behind her comments was not racist.

• The prison officers’ union has questioned why a single member of staff at HMP Chelmsford has been “unjustly” targeted after the mistaken release of a refused asylum seeker who had sexually assaulted a teenage girl.

• The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has set aside £1.1bn a year for offshore wind power developers investing in new projects, in the latest funding round aimed at meeting the UK’s green electricity targets.

Updated at 6.56pm GMT

6.24pm GMT

Collins says, in court, he would not have described China as a generic threat – because that was not the government policy at the time.

But he would have set out all the ways in which China did pose a threat, he says.