The communities secretary, Steve Reed, has given permission for China to build a vast new embassy near the Tower of London after spy chiefs told him that the risks to UK national security could be controlled and dealt with.
The decision paves the way for Keir Starmer to visit Beijing in the coming weeks – though local residents plan to legally challenge the decision, potentially delaying the development by months or years.
Wider political concerns about China were not relevant to the planning process, the minister concluded. “Ethical or similar objections to the provision of an embassy for a specific country cannot be a material planning consideration,” Reed said, as he largely endorsed a report from the department’s Planning Inspectorate.
MPs from across the political spectrum had voiced their opposition to the application, but the security services said they could handle the risks of espionage that may stem from the enlarged site, which sits close to data cables that run into the City of London.
Reed noted that neither the Home Office nor the Foreign Office, having discussed the issue with the police and the intelligence agencies, had any site-specific security concerns that would justify blocking the development.
“No bodies with responsibility for national security, including HO and FCDO [the Home Office and Foreign Office], have raised concerns or objected to the proposal on the basis of the proximity of the cables or other underground infrastructure,” Reed said. Nor had the owners of the cables raised any concerns either, he added.
In a joint letter, made public as part of the process, two spy chiefs, Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, and Anne Keast-Butler, the head of GCHQ, conceded: “It is not realistic to expect to be able wholly to eliminate each and every potential risk.”
But they went on to add that the intelligence agencies had been able “to formulate a package of national security mitigations”, by working with officials across government, that was “expert, professional and proportionate”.
That conclusion was endorsed by the cross-party intelligence and security committee, but its chair, Lord Beamish, complained that the process by which spy agencies informed the decision “was not effectively coordinated”.
The Labour peer said “key reports lacked the detail necessary, were dealt with piecemeal, and appeared not to have been kept up to date”.
Mitigations include allowing the intelligence agencies to monitor the perimeter of the site to prevent tampering with underground cables. Access will also be retained for the emergency services in the publicly accessible forecourt.
Critics of the site say its size – the embassy site would be the largest in Europe, hosting more than 200 staff – means it would become a hub for Chinese espionage and intimidation of dissidents, including from Hong Kong – and a target for large, hard-to-police protests.
China has been accused of trying to recruit informants in parliament, harass Hong Kong pro-democracy activists in the UK, suppress criticism by an academic at a British university and engage in cyber hacking, although none of the activities are known to have been directed from its existing embassy.
Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, accused Starmer of a “shameful super-embassy surrender”. The Conservative MP said the prime minister was giving China’s president, Xi Jinping, “what he wants – a colossal spy hub in the heart of our capital”.
Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative party leader who is a co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said: “This is a terrible decision that ignores the appalling brutality of the Chinese Communist party as it practises forced labour at home and spies on the UK and uses cyber-attacks to damage our internal security.”
Downing Street countered that opponents of the new Chinese embassy were “either naive or recklessly isolationist”. Embassies were “a normal part of international diplomatic relations,” Starmer’s official spokesperson said.
Reed said China had agreed to consolidate seven existing diplomatic sites into one once the new embassy was built – which MI5 has indicated would make monitoring of the site easier.
Any spying on the UK, harassment of dissidents or surveillance conducted by China from the embassy site could be dealt with by “other legal processes and by various agencies” and could not be controlled “through the planning system”, Reed concluded.
Dan Jarvis, the security minister, told MPs the government had seen unredacted plans for the embassy, directly contradicting a report in the Daily Telegraph earlier this month that claimed rooms were concealed in the plans Beijing had submitted.
Downing St said it was “content that any risks are being appropriately managed” and that ministers were confident they knew what all the embassy’s rooms would be used for.
People living next to the site said they hoped to seek a judicial review if they could raise £145,000 to fund legal representation. Mark Nygate, the treasurer of Royal Mint Court residents’ association, said: “The residents are determined to keep fighting today’s decision.”
Officials acknowledge the timing is helpful given Starmer’s expected trip to China next week. Beijing has made the embassy a priority in the UK-China relationship. Xi raised the matter directly with the prime minister in their first phone call in August 2024.
Government insiders also hope it will give them some leverage over a reciprocal decision for the UK’s embassy in Beijing. The UK’s plans to redevelop its own outpost in China’s capital have been blocked because of the London embassy row.
