Embassy go-ahead cranks up members’ security concerns – but mum’s the word over counter-espionage measures
By Patrick Kidd
Daily Telegraph Online – 20 January 2026
Dan Jarvis served in the Parachute Regiment so he has faced worse incoming fire than a handful of Tory MPs shouting “yes or no” at him. Nonetheless, Esther McVey and co sensed that their binary barrage was unsettling the security minister and cranked it up as a Commons statement progressed on the decision to approve China’s new “super-embassy”. McVey wanted to know whether the security services had any concerns and she wanted a straight answer. “Yes or no?” she asked. Jarvis, who has more nuance under his left pinkie than McVey does in her entire body, tried to explain that it’s not that simple. “I don’t know how much time she thinks about national security,” he snapped. “Yes or no? Yes or no?”
You wouldn’t get this in the Great Hall of the People, where difficult questions of ministers are unwise and short-lived. There are multiple ways to say yes and no in Chinese, depending on the context. Sir Humphrey Appleby would approve. Maybe that’s why they refer to our senior civil servants as mandarins. Of course, there is a threat from China, Jarvis conceded, but measures are being taken to mitigate … “Yes or no? Yes or no?” croaked the chorus.
Sir Julian Lewis, a former security committee chairman, said he never liked the word mitigation.
“It covers a wide range of sins,”
he said. He called the decision a
“colossal propaganda win for China”.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said the decision was a
“shameless capitulation”
and accused the Government of
“trading national security for economic links”.
He raised the plans published in this paper last week that showed a hidden chamber (I don’t think it’s the billiards room) close to critical data cables. Indeed, the new embassy will sit at the end of Cable Street. How helpful of us to mark it on the A to Z. Jarvis said the intelligence services read The Telegraph and had put “additional resilience measures” in place. “Like what?” shouted John Lamont, a Scottish Tory, suspecting this might amount to a sign saying “No snooping”. Curiously, Jarvis resisted the invitation to reveal technical details of our counter-espionage measures. I guess Lamont will just have to wait until someone in Whitehall leaves them on a bench or at a bus stop.
The embassy will be on the site of the Royal Mint, known as the Johnson Smirke Building after its Georgian architects. It was another smirking Johnson, of the Boris variety, who had given the initial consent for China to have the site. Jarvis reminded the Tories that their party had spent 14 years toggling the hot and cold taps on the Chinese bath: from a new Golden Age to the next Ice Age, from open arms to a closed fist.
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