He said that fundamental infrastructure for transferring sensitive data around the British state was compromised “for years”. Mr Cummings told The Times: “What I’m saying is that some Strap stuff was compromised and vast amounts of data classified as extremely secret and extremely dangerous for any foreign entity to control was compromised. Material from the National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. Mr Cummings called it “absolutely puerile nonsense” to suggest that whether to define China as a threat is a “difficult semantic question”. A Government spokesperson said: “We don’t comment on national security matters.”
