By Sarah Young
LONDON (Reuters) -The British government expects to have full and unredacted access to China’s plans for a huge new embassy in London ahead of its decision on whether to approve the project, its housing minister said on Tuesday.
Concerns that the new embassy could be used as a base for spying have prompted some politicians in Britain and the U.S. to warn the government to block Beijing’s plans.
The government has said it expects to make a final decision by October 21 after it pushed back an August deadline, blaming Beijing for withholding detail on the blueprints.
But the timing is problematic for Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government, after it was accused in recent weeks of downplaying the threat China poses to Britain’s national security by allowing a trial of two British men charged with spying for China to collapse.
Housing minister Steve Reed said he would be able to see the embassy plans in full, without any blacked-out areas, when asked about the government’s decision on Beijing’s plan to build the largest embassy in Europe on the site of a two-century-old building near the Tower of London.
“I expect to see everything that’s being proposed before I take a decision,” Reed told Times Radio, without clarifying how much of the plans he had seen.
MI5 ISSUES RARE WARNING
Asked whether the government was downplaying the risk to secure investment from China, he said that was not the case.
“This government recognises that China poses a threat to national security,” he said. “The decision will be taken on the merits of the case in front of me. We would never compromise national security.”
Britain’s domestic spy agency MI5 on Monday issued a rare public warning to members of parliament that they were being targeted by spies from China, as well as Russia and Iran.
In August, the planning consultancy working for the Chinese government said its client felt it would be inappropriate to provide full internal layout plans, when asked about the blacked-out areas on the drawings.
The Ministry of Housing did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it still plans to meet its October 21 deadline for a decision.
(Reporting by Sarah Young and Sam Tabahriti, writing by Sarah Young; Editing by Ros Russell)
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