The Government secretly approved plans to move critical communications cables running near China’s new “mega” embassy, months before the site’s approval, The i Paper can reveal.
Plans to mitigate against “unlawful acts” and “increase the resilience” of the cables were drawn up and approved three months before Sir Keir Starmer’s approval of Beijing’s “super-embassy” in central London earlier this year.
The Home Office made the plans without communicating with the Whitehall department dealing with Beijing’s planning application. They were approved despite repeated assurances from the Government that there were no national security concerns stemming from the site’s proximity to cables, according to court documents examining the decision.
The mitigations, which could involve encrypting or moving cables, could rack up millions of pounds in costs which the Government claims are unable to be recouped from Beijing, according to an intelligence source.
In January last year, The i Paper revealed the diplomatic complex at Royal Mint Court could allow Chinese officials an opportunity to access key fibre-optic cables vital to Britain’s internet network and the City’s sensitive communication lines.
A report assessing China’s threat to the UK, compiled by multiple British intelligence agencies in 2019, specifically cited the cables running in the vicinity of the proposed embassy site, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the report.
Telecoms plans show that cables forming part of the London Internet Exchange (Linx) run in close proximity to the site, carrying communications data relied upon by banks for key daily functions.
Throughout Beijing’s application for planning approval, neither the Home Office not the Foreign Office raised concerns about the proximity of the cables. The mitigation measures have been defined as a “separate concern” which were “not related to the planning process”, the court documents show.
The nature of the mitigations, “beyond confirming that those measures include actions to increase the resilience of cables in the area of the new embassy”, could not be revealed in order to protect national security, according to the documents.
The plans were revealed as part of a judicial review into the embassy decision brought by the residents of Royal Mint Court following its approval. They argue that they were taken out of the planning process when it was “called in” by the Labour Government weeks after the election in 2024.
Efforts to examine the threat to nearby communication lines from China, and any associated cost or disruption caused by putting in defences to protect them, were denied this week after the High Court ruled they should not be included in the scope of the judicial review.
Documents from the hearing revealed that while Beijing’s planning application was being considered by Steve Reed, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Home Office was working in secret to protect cables from “unlawful acts” threatening their security.
They show that on 19 November last year, after recognising “wider national security concerns” relating to the embassy – described by opponents as China’s “spy base in London” – Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood approved “precautionary and preventative measures” to protect the cables ““in the event of unlawful use of the premises”. Three months later, the Government approved Beijing’s plans.
The Home Secretary stated in a letter to the court “that she was under no legal or other duty to communicate her decision” to Reed who “remains unaware” of the mitigations, according to the hearing.
The Home Office did not request a contribution towards the cost of the mitigation from China arguing it was “both appropriate for those measures to be undertaken, and for the Government to pay for them.”
Lawyers acting for the Government said Chinese authorities would need to be given an outline of the works in order for a contribution to be sought. “This plainly cannot be done for national security reasons,” they argued.
A former security official believes any mitigation would cost “probably in the low seven figures” and needs to be supported by the National Cyber Security Centre, an arm of GCHQ. Such measures, they stressed, would not eliminate the threat of espionage entirely.
“Whatever we do,” they said. “It isn’t going to stop attempted espionage.”
The huge scale of the proposed new Chinese embassy on the existing Royal Mint Court site is shown by a photo in the formal planning documents, left, which also contains illustrations of the embassy design, right (Images: Chinese embassy UK/David Chipperfield Architects/DP9/Tower Hamlets Council)The Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government argued that there was no suggestion that “lawful use of the Embassy” would interfere with the cables, and the need for mitigation measures was a response to “unlawful acts”.
Last Summer, the UK intelligence community attempted to calm critics within Westminster about the embassy approval.
The House of Commons Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, was one of a number of MPs briefed by the UK’s domestic spy agency, MI5, that espionage risks posed by China’s new diplomatic compound could be mitigated.
When the Government approved Beijing’s embassy plans in January, Security Minister Dan Jarvis said security issues “are not new to the Government or the intelligence community, and an extensive range of measures have been developed to protect national security.”
He added: “We have acted to increase the resilience of cables in the area through an extensive series of measures to protect sensitive data”.
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