The housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, has admitted he regrets sitting next to the Tory donor Richard Desmond at a fundraising dinner before overruling a local authority and the government planning inspectorate to give permission for the billionaire’s £1bn Westferry property development. Jenrick also conceded it “would have been better not to” exchange messages with Desmond after the dinner, but claimed there was “no bias whatsoever” in his initial approval of the east London development, which was later quashed with the minister conceding his decision was “unlawful”. Jenrick has faced mounting pressure over the issue, after emails between civil servants released last month suggested he was “insistent” that the decision be rushed through in January in time for Desmond to avoid a £45m community levy to the borough. Desmond donated £12,000 to the party a fortnight after permission was granted. Appearing before the housing, communities and local government select committee on Wednesday, Jenrick said: “In terms of the process of the decision-making, I’ve said in my letter to you that I think this could have been handled differently. I regret that I was sat next to the applicant at a dinner in November. “I’ve also made clear that I had absolutely no idea that I was going to be sat next to him or his associates until I took my seat at the table. That is to some extent an occupational hazard of being a planning minister, because people do approach you to discuss applications – not just developers but local councils, members of the public and indeed MPs.” He added: “I was very clear to the applicant when it became clear that to me that he was discussing an application that would come before me for a ministerial decision that it was not appropriate for me to discuss it or to pass comment on it. That’s exactly in line with the rules as they were explained to me and are set out by the department. And on that occasion conversation moved on to other things, as you would expect. “I’ve also said in my letter that, with hindsight, it would have been better not to have exchanged text messages with the applicant.” Text message exchanges released by the government revealed how Desmond lobbied Jenrick after the dinner to expedite the development to avoid the need to pay the levy to Labour-run Tower Hamlets council, the poorest borough in London, saying: “We don’t want to give Marxists loads of doe [sic] for nothing!” Jenrick said the text messages also showed that he told Desmond it was not appropriate to discuss the application. He told the committee: “So I entirely believe that the decision was the right one, there was no bias whatsoever, and any suggestion of that is extremely unfair and in most cases a wilful misleading of events.” He added: “But would it have been better not to have been sat next to the applicant? Yes. That wasn’t my decision. Would it have been better not to have had text messages with him? Yes, and both myself and the department will learn lessons from the experience.” Jenrick sat next to Desmond, the former owner of the Express, at a Conservative party fundraising event on 18 November last year, where Desmond lobbied him and showed him a video about the 44-storey, 1,500-apartment development. In one document released by the government last month, a civil servant in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government wrote: “On timing, my understanding is that SoS [secretary of state – Jenrick] is/was insistent that decision issued this week ie tomorrow – as next week the viability of the scheme is impacted by a change in the London CIL regime.” The ministerial code states: “If a minister meets an external organisation or individual and finds themselves discussing official business without an official present – for example at a social occasion or holiday – any significant content should be passed back to the department as soon as possible after the event.” Jenrick told the committee it was not of interest to him who benefited from avoiding the community infrastructure levy (CIL). “I think it was a perfectly fair decision to try and get this done, one way or another, before the CIL charge came in,” he said. “Who that benefits is of no interest to me. I’m not interested in the personal finances of the applicant.” He said officials in his department “were aware of events” surrounding the Westferry application and “at no point did anybody advise me to recuse myself”.
He added: “There was no meeting with the applicant, I encountered him at a dinner. He mentioned the application, I told him that it was not appropriate to discuss it and I didn’t pass any comment. “The department were aware that I was going to the dinner, the department were aware that there was a suggestion of going on a site visit … I discussed it with my officials, as to whether it was wise to go on a site visit in light of the nature of the application, in light of the fact that I had sat next to the applicant at a dinner, and my officials advised me that on balance they thought it wasn’t and so we declined it.” He said it was “not unusual” for ministers to go against the advice of officials. He said he did not know whether Westferry was the first time he had made a decision contrary to civil servant advice. Jenrick, who has consistently denied wrongdoing, removed his approval for the scheme last month, admitting it was “unlawful by reason of apparent bias” after a challenge from Tower Hamlets. Boris Johnson has said he considers the matter “closed”. Following Jenrick’s appearance before the committee, the shadow housing and planning minister , Mike Amesbury, said: “The stench of this grubby affair won’t go away until Mr Jenrick comes clean: he needs to give a statement to the House answering all the committee’s questions in full if the public is to have any faith in the integrity of the planning system.”