Housing secretary Robert Jenrick watched part of a promotional video of PLP’s Westferry Printworks scheme by its promoter at a Tory fundraising dinner, it has emerged, prior to him overruling officials to approve the scheme.

Jenrick has already admitted to meeting the owner of the firm behind the 1,500-home scheme, media mogul Richard Desmond, at the fundraising dinner at the Carlton Club last November, but has stated he refused to discuss the matter with him.

However, Desmond told the Sunday Times that while Jenrick did decline to discuss the £1bn scheme, this was only after he had shown the minister, who has a quasi-judicial role in planning decisions, a promotional video about the scheme.

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