Chinese tracking devices were installed in Rishi Sunak official prime ministerial car, Sir Iain Duncan Smith has said.
The former Conservative leader said he was “reliably told” that cars used by Downing Street had to be stripped and a tracking device was found inside a SIM card.
Accusing Beijing of being behind a plot to monitor Mr Sunak’s journeys, he said the Chinese authorities have the capability “to be able to throw the switch, as it were ... as and when they wish”.
He told LBC: “Those devices that they’ve been putting into Downing Street cars, although they won’t admit it, tracking where the prime minister was going, knowing who he was seeing, this is exactly what they can do with batteries and with their cars.”
“It was never absolutely confirmed – of course they wouldn’t do for security reasons – but I’m pretty reliably told that they had to strip out the cars to find the devices based in the little SIMs, and they were capable and were tracking the cars and the car journeys,” said Sir Iain.
The i reported in January that a government car had been “dismantled surgically” and “rather disturbing things” – a hidden tracking device – was found inside.
An intelligence officer said the device was found inside a part imported from a China-based supplier.
The source said it would allow someone to “survey government over a period of months and years, constantly filing movements, constantly building up a rich picture of activity”.
Ex-Tory leader and leading China hawk Sir Iain Duncan Smith— (PA Archive)
But Chinese officials dismissed the claims at the time as “sheer rumour” and criticised “political manipulation on normal economic and trade cooperation or any smear on Chinese enterprises”.
Asked about Mr Duncan Smith’s claim a device had been installed in Mr Sunak’s car, the PM’s official spokesman said: “I can’t get into commenting on security issues.”
The No 10 official added: “We have very comprehensive security protection measures in place, but I can’t comment on specifics.”
It comes as some Tories warned that electric cars imported from China could help Beijing to spy on British citizens. Members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China – including Sir Iain – fear the British car industry risks being compromised by Beijing.
The group said Britain could become “flooded” with Chinese cars and batteries along “with all the attendant security risks”.
“It is hard to conceive of a more critical infrastructure to everyday life in the UK, and it is absolutely wrong to allow control of such a key industry to be handed to authoritarian Beijing.”
