Chinese Embassy

Debate between Alicia Kearns and Matthew Pennycook

Tuesday 13th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government if he will make a statement on the release of unredacted plans for the proposed Chinese embassy.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

This question relates to the proposals for a new Chinese embassy at Royal Mint Court. It is a decision to be taken by Planning Ministers, independent of the rest of Government. As I have said before in the House, this Government are committed to the probity of the planning process at all levels, to ensure robust and evidence-based decision making. Planning Ministers must take decisions following a quasi-judicial process, meaning that they must take decisions fairly, based on evidence and planning rules.

As the case is currently before the Department for consideration, and due to the statutory role of Ministers in the planning process, it would be entirely inappropriate for me to comment further on this live case. That said, I fully understand Members’ interest in the case, so I will briefly set out the process that the case has followed to date. A public inquiry into the applications was held by an independent planning inspector between 11 and 19 February 2025. The Department received the inspector’s report into the applications on 10 June that year. On 6 August 2025, a reference-back letter was sent to parties seeking further information, specifically in respect of the redacted plans and some issues raised by the Home Office and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. That was recirculated for further comment on 22 August, and again on 16 October, 2 December, and 17 December. It was recirculated for information on 6 January 2026. Referring back to parties is routine when further information is required.

As you know, Mr Speaker, the Government do not provide a running commentary on planning casework decisions, and it would be particularly inappropriate to make any comment on material that has been received. The reference-back material will be available on request when the decision is issued. The timetable has been varied to allow for full consideration of the applications, given the detailed nature of the representations provided, and the need to give parties sufficient opportunity to respond. A final decision will now be made on or before 20 January 2026. Such variation to the timetable is routine when additional time is needed for determination. Members can be assured—I am afraid I will be required to state the following ad nauseam, Mr Speaker—that Ministers will take all material planning considerations into account when the final decision is made, and Ministers will inform the House of the decision accordingly.

[Mr Speaker]

In fairness, you brought me into this by saying that I would know about planning—absolutely—but I did not choose for you to be the Minister who answered this. I would have thought it would have been someone from the Home Office, and the Minister for Security. I call Alicia Kearns.

[Alicia Kearns]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is very disappointing to get a technocratic history lesson rather than an answer to the meaningful question.

Two hundred and eight secret rooms and a hidden chamber, just 1 metre from cables serving the City of London and the British people—that is what the unredacted plans tell us the Chinese Communist party has planned for its new embassy if the Government give it the go-ahead. Indeed, we now know that it plans to demolish the wall between the cables and the embassy—cables on which our economy is dependent; cables carrying millions of British people’s emails and financial data, and access that would give the Chinese Communist party a launchpad for economic warfare against our nation.

The Home Office and the Foreign Office say that security concerns have been “addressed”, so I put this to the Minister: had any Minister seen the unredacted plans before The Telegraph uncovered them? If not, why not? Was Parliament misled when we were told that all documents were publicly available? Is it true that in December a briefing was given to our Five Eyes partners on these risks? Does the Minister really have no concerns at all over plans to install heavy ventilation equipment parallel to those cables? What is that for? If the Government are as shocked as we are today, have Ministers already called in the Chinese ambassador to explain those secret rooms? If not, why not? The embassy would create a daily headache for our security services. What confidence can we have that the CCP’s technological capabilities can be contained for a decade, let alone 10? I have consistently asked the Government to require the Chinese to pay for any re-routing of cables if they are to give this go-ahead, so will the Government commit to that today?

We understand that the Prime Minister is planning to visit Beijing this month. Is it true that the embassy will be approved this week? That the Prime Minister plans to reward the Communist party, which is holding a British national hostage and torturing him in confinement, and which put spies at the heart of our democracy, is bad enough, but to turn up with a gift in hand, begging for handouts, beggars belief. Labour promised a new relationship with China, yet UK goods exports are down 23%. Surrendering our security for Chinese trade was always a bad policy, but surrendering our security while exports plummet is, frankly, insanity. The Government can claim today they had no idea about the secret rooms, and we will take them at their word, but they cannot now say that they have no power to protect us. We must protect our economy, protect the British people, and deny the Chinese Communist party its embassy.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the shadow Minister for her questions. I am obviously not going to comment on speculation in the press. On the specific case before Ministers, at the application stage it was a matter for parties what information was put forward for consideration, and it was a matter for Tower Hamlets what information was put on the planning register and the inquiry website. We have not misled the House. All inquiry documents are publicly available on that website, and if new potentially relevant information is drawn to the Department’s attention, it will be assessed. That includes consideration of its relevance, and whether it is necessary to obtain that information or refer back to parties. That is a routine process.

The Secretary of State transparently sought further information on the redacted drawings via a reference-back letter to parties issued on 6 August. I say again that no decision has been made on the case. I cannot comment on individual aspects of the case, and it would be entirely inappropriate for me to comment on any matter of national security, or on behalf of the security services. All inquiry documents, including the redacted drawings put forward by the applicant at application stage, are publicly available on the Tower Hamlets website. When the final decision is published, the decision letter will contain a list of post-inquiry representations, including those received as part of the reference-back exercise, and those will be publicly available on request.

Planning and Solar Farms

Debate between Alicia Kearns and Matthew Pennycook

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Matthew Pennycook]

The right hon. Gentleman tempts me to stray outside my departmental responsibilities, which I will not do. I am afraid that we are in complete agreement with his Government, who say that there needs to be far more solar deployment on category 3 land. He may want to take it up with the Minister outside the debate.

We believe that the system needs a renewed focus on integrated spatial and infrastructure planning to ensure we are developing and using land strategically, and ensuring that large sites of more than 50 MW are appropriately distributed across the country. I listened with great interest to the comments of the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) about a land use framework. We certainly support that direction.

We believe the planning system needs proactive and strategic energy deployment to be integrated fully into local and neighbourhood plan development, and renewable development should feature prominently in the development plan’s soundness test. We believe the system needs to speed up the process for securing planning consent for renewable generation of all kinds for projects over and under 50 MW capacity.

That is not to say that we do not understand and appreciate the concerns that have been expressed in the debate. As I have made clear, there is no question but that we need a more strategic and planned approach to ground-mounted solar deployment across the country. We need to do more to drive up rates of rooftop solar installation and prioritise solar deployment on previously developed or lower-value land. We need to take steps to further maximise the efficiency of sites used for renewable deployment, and co-locate infrastructure wherever possible to mitigate its impact on communities. We need environmental protections to remain in place, and we need communities to continue to have a say about where large-scale projects are best located.

Ensuring we have a sensible approach to large-scale ground-mounted solar deployment does not mean that there is an option to refuse it wholesale.

[Alicia Kearns]

I am slightly surprised that the hon. Gentleman has not mentioned human rights. He has dashed my hopes of the Labour party’s support for my new clause to the Energy Bill—although I will come back to him for a flip on that in a few weeks’ time—but what about the amendment that recognises that we should not be importing Uyghur-produced slave labour solar panels?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I hope she will forgive me if I do not outline a Front-Bench position on a particular amendment that is outside my departmental responsibility—

[Alicia Kearns]

No, please do! You speak on behalf of your party.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will certainly feed the point back to my colleagues. [Interruption.] I am answering the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton. In general terms, we are very concerned about and share the concerns about the supply chains for solar and the use of slave labour. I have listened to the hon. Lady speak very eloquently on the subject many times, and I think we generally agree with the approach, but I cannot speak to the particular amendment she mentioned.

As I said, having a sensible approach to solar deployment does not mean that it can be an option to refuse it wholesale. It is deeply problematic that rates of solar farm planning permission refusal have risen significantly over recent years. We are committed to ensuring that communities have a say on where large-scale solar deployment should take place in their areas and want to do more in particular to boost community participation and engagement upstream at the plan-making stage, as well as ensure that communities directly benefit from local renewable installation. However, we feel strongly that the Government must address delays in the planning process and other regulatory processes that currently present a barrier to low-carbon infrastructure installation at scale.