https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/showdown-looms-over-chinas-new-super-embassy/
Baroness Scott of Bybrook, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL3331):
Question by Lord Alton of Liverpool:
To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to the involvement of the Chinese Consul in Manchester in violence against a protestor, what plans they have, if any, to call-in the planning application PA/21/01327/A1 for the construction of a new Chinese embassy at Royal Mint Court. (HL3331)
Tabled on: 14 November 2022
Answer:
Baroness Scott of Bybrook:
Planning application PA/21/01327/A1 for the construction of a new Chinese embassy at Royal Mint Court is currently being considered by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has received a request that the application be called in. This request is under consideration. Government’s policy on calling in applications is set out in a Written Ministerial Statement of 2012 (Hansard 26 October 2012, Columns 71WS and 72WS). This sets out that the Secretary of State’s policy.
Date and time of answer: 28 Nov 2022 at 13:35.
“Following the welcome decision yesterday, on security grounds, to prevent the takeover of our biggest producer of semiconductors at Newport Wafer Fab, what assessment have the Minister and the Security Minister, Tom Tugendhat, made of the ambitions to create a mega PRC embassy on the site of the Royal Mint? Will the Minister agree to talk to Mr Tugendhat and ask Michael Gove to consider calling in this application? The deal led to 200 British citizens having the freehold of their homes sold to the Chinese state, over their heads. After what happened in Manchester, and what happens throughout China, families are scared and angry but have been utterly ignored. Will the Minister write to me detailing who brokered the Royal Mint deal, how much money passed hands, and what was the independent valuation of the site?”
