The government has defended its decision not to share the full intelligence on the Salisbury nerve agent attack with Jeremy Corbyn, insisting the “circle” of those with access to highly sensitive information should be restricted.

Ben Wallace, the security minister, said the number of people entrusted with the most sensitive details of the case should be deliberately kept small so intelligence agents’ lives were not put at risk.

The Labour party leader has received an intelligence briefing on privy council terms, but was not given the same access to highly classified information as David Cameron provided to Ed Miliband over Syria in 2013.

“This is serious stuff and the circle of who gets to see very sensitive information is very small, because if you leak it or it gets out, people’s lives are put at risk,” Wallace said.

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“The best example is Mr Skripal; that’s what happens to people if other countries to decide to take actions or they have enemies.”

Wallace insisted it was “beyond reasonable doubt” that the Russian state was behind the attempted murder of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, despite chemical weapons experts saying they were unable to confirm where the novichok nerve agent was made.

Labour reacted angrily to the implication that Corbyn might leak intelligence, accusing Wallace of “playing party politics” over the level of briefing granted in order to distract from a row over comments by the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson.

“This is completely irresponsible and another attempt by the Tories to deflect criticism from Boris Johnson’s blatant attempt to mislead the public. The foreign secretary has still failed to account for himself and still has serious questions to answer,” a party spokesman said.

“Ben Wallace should be acting in the national interest, not playing party politics with the country’s security.”

However, the minister defended the decision to restrict the intelligence Corbyn was given access to, saying foreign allies had agreed Russia was behind the attack on the basis of the information they had seen.

“He is the leader of the opposition; he is not the government. He doesn’t have the duty or the responsibility of protecting at the moment – and I hope he never does – the security of this country,” he told BBC radio.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ben Wallace: ‘We are beyond reasonable doubt of the view that the Russian state is behind this.’ Photograph: Rex Features

“He would already have seen more than the average backbench MP because he had a privy council briefing, but at the end of the day, this government is responsible for the security of the people, and the United Kingdom’s interests, and as a result, we have to take the judgement based on the result we get from our professionals.

“The decision of what to share was made and I wasn’t privy to what he was allowed to see, but it would have been made in a reasoned environment where people wanted to show him evidence.

“He can always dispute that; it’s not about him being helpful, he doesn’t have to be helpful, he can be critical and say whatever he likes, he is leader of the opposition and has a perfect right [to] – and he should – question the government”.

Later on Thursday one of Corbyn’s strongest backbench allies, Derby North MP Chris Williamson, said Johnson and other ministers had sought to use the Salisbury incident “as a way of diverting attention away from their own difficulties over Brexit and economic policy”.

Speaking on the Russian news station RT – which the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said last month Labour MPs should shun – Williamson said some Tiry MPs were “not just interested in moving it into a cold war situation but many of them were looking as if they were in favour of a hot war”.

Reports on Thursday suggested the British security services believe they have pinpointed the location of the covert Russian laboratory that manufactured the weapons-grade nerve agent used in Salisbury.

Ministers and security officials were apparently able to identify the source using scientific analysis and intelligence in the days after the attack, adding to Britain’s intelligence case against Russia.

The Times claimed Britain knew about the existence of the facility where the novichok was made before the attack on 4 March, and had a high degree of certainty that the nerve agent was manufactured there.

Wallace said the government would resist a “Dutch auction” on releasing further intelligence to prove its case in the face of Russian denials.

“Intelligence is often gained by people rising their lives and the security of their lives being put at risk. It’s not just routine evidence that you can just bring up in court,” he said.

He rejected comparisons between the Salisbury investigation and British intelligence failings in Iraq. “Let’s be absolutely clear, nerve agent was used in Salisbury, there’s no missing nerve agent that no one can find,” he said.



Counter-terrorism police have been guarded in what they have said about their investigation, and have not commented at all for a week.

But Wallace suggested elements of what the police had found pointed to Russian culpability.

“We have found nerve agent. That nerve agent has been identified to be manufactured, we believe, in Russia. We believe the novichok type of nerve agent is only capable of being produced by a nation state,” he said.

“We add that to intelligence we hold, we add that to some of the police investigation going on and we can say roads lead to Russia. We are beyond reasonable doubt of the view that the Russian state is behind this.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest American diplomats and their families leave the US embassy compound in Moscow in the early hours. Photograph: Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images

Dozens of US diplomats declared personae non gratae headed for airports in Moscow on Thursday morning, Russian state news agencies reported. Beginning at 4am local time (2am GMT), buses drove to pick up some of the 60 diplomats, along with their families, who were expelled in last week’s tit-for-tat retaliation by Moscow.

The US expelled 60 Russian diplomats last month in a show of support for London in its standoff with Moscow over the Skripal poisoning. Of the US diplomats targeted, 58 were in Moscow and two were in Yekaterinburg.