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A vast new Chinese embassy complex in east London is almost certain to be formally approved next week despite renewed worries among Labour MPs about potential security risks and the effect on Hong Kong and Uighur exiles in the capital.
The green light for the super-embassy at Royal Mint Court near Tower Bridge would smooth relations before Keir Starmer’s visit to China, which is expected to take place at the end of January, but officials insist there has been no political input in the planning process.
It would be a controversial move, with a series of Labour MPs expressing concern in the Commons on Tuesday over the plans for the complex, which spans 20,000 sq metres.
Answering an urgent question from the shadow Home Office minister, Alicia Kearns, the planning minister, Matthew Pennycook, whose department is responsible for the process, said he could not comment on what was a “quasi-judicial” process.
Kearns secured the question after a report in the Daily Telegraph that unredacted plans for the embassy showed a network of more than 200 subterranean rooms, one of them alongside communication cables taking information to the City of London.
Pennycook said any new information would be assessed, but the embassy is expected to be given the go-ahead next week after a final consultation. MI5 is understood not to have any security concerns about the project, as revealed by the Guardian last year.
Kearns said the lack of concern was complacent, and that access to the cables underneath the embassy “would give the Chinese Communist party a launch pad for economic warfare against our nation”.
It would be “a daily headache” for our security services, she said, demanding the Chinese ambassador be called in to explain the plans. Citing Starmer’s planned visit to China, she asked if approval of the embassy would allow the prime minister to “turn up with a gift in hand”.
Government officials are aware the timing could be useful but insist it is coincidental. As one put it: “There is no political pressure, but that has crossed our minds.”
No Labour MPs spoke in favour of approving the plan during the urgent question. Among those who expressed worry was Sarah Champion, who chairs the Commons international development select committee.
“Multiple government agencies and government departments have raised concerns about this mega-embassy,” she said. “Our international partners have raised concerns about it. Every security briefing I’ve had identifies China as a hostile state to the UK. I am in no doubt this mega-embassy should not be allowed to go ahead.”
Other Labour backbenchers focused primarily on the potential repercussions for residents originally from Hong Kong, Tibet or Xinjiang. Several said Chinese diplomatic missions had previously been used to target such diaspora populations.
Alex Sobel, the MP for Leeds Central and Headingley, said the embassy could pose a “real threat” to UK-based Hong Kongers and Uyghurs, the predominantly Muslim population of Xinjiang, the far-western region where China has been accused of abuses including forced labour and arbitrary detention.
Rushanara Ali, the MP for Bethnal Green and Stepney, in whose constituency the embassy would be sited, called for the concerns of locals to be taken seriously, saying that the area’s large Muslim population meant there was a particular focus on Xinjiang.
Another Labout MP, James Naish, who represents Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire, said the debate was not just about a building, but one of national security and the safety to diaspora groups, and asked for assurances that the process had been fair.
Pennycook said: “The planning process hasn’t been compromised. We will make a planning decision on the basis of the relevant propriety guidance.”
The decision had been delayed because of the “detailed nature of the representations that have been provided, and the need to give parties sufficient opportunity to respond”, he said.
