Seema Malhotra

I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to it. She will know that discussions with Five Eyes partners relating to domestic security matters are primarily a responsibility for the Home Office. The decision on planning permission for the proposed Chinese embassy at Royal Mint Court rests solely with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government in his quasi-judicial capacity. He has set 20 January as the target date for his decision, and I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham will agree that it would not be appropriate for me to cut across that process. I appreciate that there has been significant interest in our engagement with allies and partners on this matter. As my hon. Friend knows, we never comment on conversations with allies regarding intelligence matters. I can nevertheless reassure her and the House that we continue to work closely with our Five Eyes partners and other like-minded countries on a wide range of issues, including those pertaining to domestic security. These partnerships are essential for our shared security. We have been consistently clear that national security is the first duty of Government, and it has been our core priority throughout the embassy process, with the close involvement of the security and intelligence agencies. Our intelligence services have been involved throughout, and a range of measures have been developed and are being implemented to protect national security. The Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary also publicly identified two issues: the consolidation of China’s diplomatic estate in London and public access. Those require resolution before a decision could be made. In November, they wrote to confirm that appropriate resolutions to those issues had been reached. As the director general of MI5 commented last month, our security services have over a century of experience of managing the risks that arise from foreign embassies on UK soil, and I have full confidence in their ability to do so effectively.