HOUSING Secretary Robert Jenrick bowed to pressure from Labour yesterday with a promise to release documents related to the Westferry planning scandal.

During an Opposition Day debate, he told MPs he would provide a timeline and explain his decision-making on the Westferry Printworks Development — which he approved 12 days before its developer gave £12,000 to the Conservative Party.

Labour brought the debate over the suspected “cash-for-favours” incident involving former press baron Richard “Dirty Des” Desmond.

Shadow communities secretary Steve Reed said Mr Jenrick’s “bending over backwards for his billionaire dinner-date” had “blown apart confidence in the planning system.”

The 1,500-flat development on east London’s Isle of Dogs is being undertaken by Mr Desmond’s company Northern & Shell, which formerly owned the Daily Express and Daily Star newspapers.

Mr Jenrick had unlawfully approved the application in January, overruling Tower Hamlets council and a planning inspector, the day before a new community-infrastructure levy was enforced.

Labour said that avoiding the levy would have saved Mr Desmond up to £50 million, and that the overruling of advisers to reduce the proportion of affordable homes on the development would have saved him £106m.

Faced with legal action by the council, Mr Jenrick quashed his decision — admitting that it was “unlawful by reason of apparent bias.”

It later emerged that Mr Jenrick had sat next to Mr Desmond and four senior Northern & Shell executives at an exclusive Tory Party fundraising dinner in November 2019.

Mr Desmond told the Sunday Times that Mr Jenrick viewed a promotional video for the development on the property tycoon’s phone, which Mr Jenrick had denied.

But in the Commons yesterday, he admitted that Mr Desmond had showed him images of the development on his phone.

Mr Reed said that Mr Desmond’s lobbyists, from the Thorncliffe firm, had sold tickets to people who wanted access to Mr Jenrick at the dinner.

Mr Reed added that ministers are not allowed to make planning decisions if they have been lobbied by the applicant and that to do so is a “serious abuse of power.”

Mr Jenrick accused Labour of making “wild accusations” and “propagating baseless innuendo” against him.

He said he stepped in because the council had failed to make a decision.

Labour MP Rushanara Ali, whose constituency is in Tower Hamlets, described Mr Jenrick’s attack on the council for demanding more social housing as “rotten.”