Angela Rayner has ordered China to explain why it has redacted blueprints for its ‘mega-embassy’ set to be built in London, amid fears the building’s basement rooms could be converted into ‘spy dungeons’.
As Housing Secretary, Rayner has given Beijing two weeks to either provide unredacted plans, according to the FT.
If China does not do this, the deputy prime minister has ordered it to ‘identify precisely and comprehensively’ the withheld parts and explain why the floorplan for the basement and other areas of the Royal Mint Court development have been ‘greyed out’.
According to Rayner’s letter to the Chinese embassy, she highlighted that two suites of anonymous rooms and a tunnel were redacted ‘for security reasons’.
Other buildings on the plans were also partly greyed out, including the Cultural Exchange Building and Embassy House.
It also highlights a Home Office request for a ‘hard perimeter’ around the embassy that may represent a ‘material amendment to the application that would require further consultation’.
The letter asked for further information in order for the Housing Secretary to make a ‘lawful determination’ on whether to allow the site to go up, adding that ‘no view has been formed yet.’
The new embassy, if built, would sit opposite the Tower of London in the former Royal Mint and would be China’s largest in Europe.
Critics fear the site will become the centre of increased espionage operations and may be used to harass Chinese dissidents
Angela Rayner has ordered China to explain why it has redacted blueprints for its ‘mega-embassy’ set to be built in London
Critics fear the site will become the centre of increased espionage operations and may be used to harass Chinese dissidents.
The US has already expressed ‘deep concern’ over the project, as it sits close to the City of London, home to some of the world’s largest financial institutions. MPs in the Netherlands have also raised similar concerns.
The site was sold to China by the UK government in 2018 for £255million.
A full decision on whether the embassy will be allowed to be built will be made by September.
It comes after diplomatic sources warned the Mail on Sunday that the new embassy will have on-site accommodation for more than 200 intelligence officers.
A source said: ‘There will effectively be a student-style campus for spies in the heart of the City.
‘And those spy dungeons are so deep that the sensitive cables are virtually at head height.’
The MoS can also reveal that the embassy plans exempt a ‘cultural exchange’ section from ‘inspection and verification’ by UK authorities.
A US security source said ‘cultural interests/exchange’ is a ‘euphemism for intelligence and security services’, adding: ‘It’s where they often stuff their security and intelligence staff, among other diplomats.
Pictured: Royal Mint Court, the site of the proposed new Chinese Embassy in London
The plan for the embassy, close to the Tower of London, was blocked by the previous government after British intelligence agencies and Scotland Yard objected on the grounds that sensitive data cables that run nearby could be vulnerable to attack by Chinese spies. Pictured: A planning document
‘And if it’s a “cultural” centre/space, why do they always declare it off limits in planning documents?’
Ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘Everywhere there is a mega embassy… Chinese state-sponsored, trans-national repression of those who have fled the Chinese state or who criticise it grows dramatically.
‘It’s simple: a bigger embassy has more spies and more repression.’
Shadow Levelling Up Secretary Kevin Hollinrake said Labour had been ‘caught red-handed trying to ram through this sinister embassy’ in a ‘desperate attempt to woo the Chinese Communist Party to bail out their failing economic policies’.
He added: ‘It is shocking Labour want to sign a legal document that will ban British officials checking what is being built in the embassy building. This is yet another surrender document from a Labour Government that puts foreign interests over British interests.’
‘The so-called cultural exchange will clearly be used by Chinese spies and communist bullies to further their political ends.’
China has dismissed claims the embassy could be an espionage hub.
