Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the letter from Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 5 November, whether the special provisions within the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 on the private disclosure of information are being used in the Chinese Embassy planning case; and what steps they are taking to facilitate sharing of (1) sensitive information about the building plans by the applicant, and (2) sensitive information about the applicant and its potential use of the building for espionage or repression, including information held by the intelligence services which those services do not wish to share with the government of China or otherwise place in the public domain.

All inquiry documents for this case are publicly available on Tower Hamlets (attached) website here.

Post-inquiry representations are routinely listed at the end of the final decision letter, and are also available on request once the decision letter has issued. The Secretary of State is able to issue a direction under section 321 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which allows specific evidence to be withheld from public inspection at a public inquiry. No section 321 direction has been made in this case.