Watch the moment Labour MP Luke Pollard is grilled by GB News host Ellie Costello over the Government repeatedly kicking the can down the road with regards to a decision on a new mega-embassy for China in London.
Speaking to GB News, the Armed Forces Minister was quizzed on the delay, as Ellie said the decision “needs to be a rejection”.
Questions have been asked once more about the controversial embassy after Security Minister Dan Jarvis accused China of “attempting to recruit and cultivate individuals with access to sensitive information about Parliament and the UK Government”.
The activity involves a “covert attempt by a foreign power” to “interfere with our sovereign affairs” in favour of its own interests, which Mr Jarvis declared will “not be tolerated”.
Ellie wanted to know whether a new Chinese super embassy in the capital would be a wise move considering the spy threat looming over Westminster.
“Why is this Government pushing that decision about whether or not to give approval to that super embassy to China down the road?”, she asked. “
“That needs to be a rejection, doesn’t it, especially in light of what MI5 has now highlighted?”
The Labour MP responded: “We’re a nation of laws, and the planning process is governed by a legal framework. But because of the national security concerns that have been raised by the Foreign Office and Home Office, the Government said that we all need more time to consider those.
“But we’ve also said that a decision on this quasi-judicial planning process will be taken by the 10th of December.”
He added: “But I think it’s worth your viewers understanding that our intelligence services are used to dealing with foreign embassies in our capital. We have a Chinese embassy in our capital, currently a Russian embassy, an Iranian embassy. So we’re used to dealing with those.
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“But we also need to be alive to the fact that the threats posed by Russia, China, around North Korea and others aren’t just limited to what can happen in a building, it’s about the pervasiveness of their technologies as well.
“And when there’s Chinese tech in pretty much all our homes and in many of the businesses up and down the country, we need to be very aware of the risks that are posed by that, as well as being able to properly understand and mitigate any threats that may exist from embassies and from any Chinese Intel.”
Pressed on the spying threats raised by Mr Jarvis, Mr Pollard told GB News: “The first thing that we’ve done is called it out, put it in the public domain, to highlight that we know what these Chinese actors are doing, and to publish advice from MI5 to give to parliamentarians and their staff. But I think that advice, which is now available on the internet, applies to businesses and individuals as well.
“Be careful who you’re connecting with online. Be careful what links you’re clicking on and be careful about the information that you’re sharing. I think it’s exactly right that in this new era of threats where we’re seeing our adversaries cooperate together and pose different challenges to the United Kingdom than we’ve seen in the past.”
He cautioned: “There’s something that we can all do, but especially those people that are involved with our politics, that we know that there are actors abroad who want to get close, who want to learn snippets of information that might seem innocuous in one conversation, but when pieced together, can provide more details than we would like them to have about our security.
“That’s why Dan Jarvis, the Security Minister, revealed this in the Commons yesterday and why he also announced increased funding in the technologies and the counter state activities of our intelligence services to get after this increasing problem.”
Asked if the Government has been asleep at the wheel in terms of defence readiness, he said: “No, we’re in a process of accelerating the change within our armed forces. We’ve published our Strategic Defence Review, which actually in many cases, is very similar to the report that the my colleagues in the Defence Select Committee have published today that says we need to transform our armed forces.
“We’re moving from an era where we saw our armed forces hollowed out and underfunded by the last Government. That’s why we’re putting more money into our armed forces, but importantly, we need to renew the technology, the platforms, the kit and equipment our people use. That’s why we’re replacing old equipment with new technology.”
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