The government has again delayed making a decision on whether the Chinese super embassy can go ahead.
New Housing Secretary Steve Reed, who took over from Angela Rayner, was due to approve or deny Beijing’s application for a 600,000 sq ft embassy near the Tower of London next Tuesday.
However, the decision has been delayed to 10 December, “given the detailed nature” of the planning application, and the need to give parties sufficient opportunity to respond”, the prime minister’s spokesman confirmed.
He added that the new deadline is “not legally binding”.
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The spokesman denied the postponement was politically influenced and said it was “very much bound by the quasi-judicial” nature of planning law.
The delay comes the day after the government published witness statements it provided to prosecutors in the China spy trial that collapsed, prompting a blame game over whose fault it was that it dropped.
A decision had already been delayed from 9 September to 21 October after China submitted plans with large greyed-out sections, which said: “Redacted for security reasons.”
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It has become controversial due to concerns about it being turned into a Chinese spy hub for Europe and the fact highly sensitive financial cables run beneath it to the City of London and Canary Wharf.
The decision to delay again was made after the national security strategy committee wrote to Mr Reed on Monday saying that approving the embassy at its proposed site was “not in the UK’s long-term interest”.
Committee chairman Matt Western, a Labour MP, said in the letter the location presents “eavesdropping risks in peacetime and…
