Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will make a further assessment of the adequacy of the proposed site for the new Chinese Embassy at the Royal Mint Court following the events outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester.

The apparent behaviour of Consulate-General officials during the incident in Manchester on 16 October, as it appears from the footage, is completely unacceptable. We await details of the police investigation. In the meantime, the UK Government has delivered clear messages to the Chinese Embassy in London and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing about the depth of our concern. If the police determine there are grounds to charge any officials, we would expect the Chinese consulate to waive immunity for those officials.

A planning application for a new Chinese Embassy is currently before the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. As the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has a quasi-judicial role in the planning system, it would not be appropriate to comment on the merits of the proposal, as it could come before Ministers at some point in the future.