A senior official at one of the UK’s largest trade unions has lost an unfair dismissal claim amid a police investigation into allegations of bribery, fraud and money-laundering at the organisation.

Howard Beckett was assistant general secretary at Unite the Union until his suspension in August 2022, four months after police raided the union’s London headquarters.

In his tribunal judgement, employment judge Richard Nicolle said police searches had also taken place at Mr Beckett’s “flat in London and home on the Wirral on 6 April 2022”.

Mr Beckett argued the claims against him were “baseless”.

His lawyer has told the BBC he is appealing the Employment Tribunal’s judgement, has launched legal action against the union and its general secretary for breach of privacy, and he noted the judge had been critical of Unite.

Mr Beckett was initially told his suspension was due to allegations of “misleading” the union’s ruling executive council in relation to the construction of its vastly over-budget hotel and conference centre in Birmingham.

The project was originally estimated to cost £7m but more than £100m was eventually spent.

An independent valuation later concluded the finished building was worth only £29m.

General secretary Sharon Graham commissioned an inquiry which, the tribunal said, led to the discovery of £14m which did not feature “in the final accounts and it remaining a mystery as to how and when this figure had been assessed and then presumably paid” to a contractor.

Mr Beckett was also told he had been suspended due to “concerns about the probity of awarding contracts for affiliated services”.

A close ally of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Mr Beckett was off sick for almost 18 months before he resigned from Unite in January 2023.

His lawyer told the tribunal Mr Beckett had not been well enough to participate in a disciplinary hearing and the union’s disciplinary charges were “baseless”.

The employment judge rejected this, and also found Mr Beckett had not been demoted as he had claimed.

The judge did, however, say there were “significant deficiencies” in Unite’s “investigation and disciplinary processes”.

Judge Nicolle wrote: “It would have been extremely surprising in the Tribunal’s view had [Unite] allowed its Head of Legal to return to active employment in circumstances where there were ongoing police investigations into very serious matters to include bribery, money laundering and offences under proceeds of criminality legislation.”

Ms Graham, who succeeded Len McCluskey as Unite general secretary in 2021, did not give evidence to the tribunal.

The BBC has contacted Unite the Union for comment.

Labour declared after the election that “Britain is back” on the world stage after years of Conservative retreat.

But when it comes to China, the government is tiptoeing nervously in the wings.

David Lammy’s trip to China is rare – he is only the second foreign secretary to visit in six years.

He held talks in Beijing with his powerful counterpart, Wang Yi, and Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, before heading to Shanghai to meet British business leaders on Saturday.

You might think the Foreign Office would want to make a big thing of it, to emphasise the importance of the diplomatic repair job the foreign secretary is bent on.

But instead, the trip is taking place sotto voce.

There is little media access to Mr Lammy. There are no announcements about a new trade agreement, or cooperation on policy.

Whitehall sources tell me this in part the fault of Downing Street which, they say, is increasingly gripped by caution after a febrile few weeks.

No10 officials want to avoid political rows ahead of the Budget later this month. They do not want Labour and Conservative MPs to unite in accusing the government of putting economic gain ahead of human rights and international law.

There is a strong cross-party caucus in Westminster that is China-sceptic; seven MPs and peers remain officially sanctioned by Beijing as a result.

They are already accusing Mr Lammy of backtracking on pre-election promises to push the international courts to declare China’s treatment of the Uighur minority as genocide.

Perhaps the chief reason for the low-key nature of Mr Lammy’s visit is that Labour is still working out its policy towards China.

It is conducting what it calls a cross-Whitehall “audit” of Britain’s relationship with the country, which is not due to complete until next year. It is then that Chancellor Rachel Reeves, and perhaps even Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, may visit China.

For now, the government has a holding position which it sums up in three words: “challenge, compete, cooperate”.

It says it will challenge China on human rights abuses and its support for Russia in Ukraine. It will compete with China over trade. And it will cooperate with China over shared interests, such as global health and climate change.

If this sounds familiar, that is because other western powers use similar language. And the previous Conservative government’s policy was to “protect, align and engage”.

However, both parties have found it difficult to work out where precisely to draw the line.

Does “compete” involve banning Chinese electric vehicles from the UK’s automotive market?

Does “challenge” mean restricting lucrative Chinese students from attending cash-strapped UK universities?

Does “cooperate” involve sharing private medical research to help prevent a future pandemic?

The head of MI5, Ken McCallum, spoke only last week of “a threat that manifests at scale” from China, targeting Britain’s information and democracy.

Mr Lammy’s more prosaic aim on this visit is simply to re-establish some kind of working relationship with Beijing.

Under the Conservatives, UK-China relations blew hot and cold, between the diplomatic warmth of the so-called “golden era” to the hawkish aggression of more recent Conservative leaders.

Last year, then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called China the “greatest threat” to Britain’s economy; then-Foreign Secretary James Cleverly visited Beijing calling for re-engagement; his successor Lord Cameron resolutely ignored the country.

Mr Lammy says he wants to re-establish what he calls a more consistent and pragmatic relationship.

During his talks with Mr Wang, he said he was “struck by the scope for mutually beneficial cooperation on the climate, on energy and nature, of the science and tech, on trade and investment, on health and development.”

He said Beijing and London should “find pragmatic solutions to complex challenges”.

China appears up for that. Mr Wang said China-UK relations were “standing at a new starting point” and spoke of “our boosted confidence in bilateral cooperation”.

He even referred by name to Mr Lammy’s foreign policy slogan – “progressive realism” – which Mr Wang said, “has positive significance”.

So far, so conciliatory.

Of course, Mr Lammy said both countries had “different perspectives” on some issues.

In a statement after the talks, the Foreign Office said he raised concerns about China’s military support for Russia in Ukraine, and how that was damaging China’s relationships in Europe.

The department also said he raised China’s treatment of the Uighurs in the Xinjiang region, “serious concerns” over the implementation of new national security laws in Hong Kong, and called for the release of the British media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who has been arbitrarily detained there.

But it insisted the meeting was “constructive across the full breadth of the bilateral relationship” and both sides committed to “regular discussions” at ministerial level.

For that ultimately is what this trip is all about: re-establishing links with the Chinese government.

The government’s priority is economic growth, and that is hard without a working relationship with its fourth largest trading partner.

But when it comes to China, it still remains unclear where Labour will draw the line between challenging, competing and cooperating.

Wind and solar farms that are ready to be built would be allowed to jump the queue for a connection to the UK’s electricity system under government plans.

All energy schemes which need a connection to the National Grid are currently in a single queue which operates on a “first-come-first-served” basis.

Some projects face waiting times stretching long into the next decade to get connected.

The government wants to speed up projects that will help it meet its goal of decarbonising power generation in the UK by 2030.

Some industry sources say it would be a welcome move but others warn that there is a “real risk” of legal challenges from projects which lose out.

The previous government brought in powers to weed out projects from the queue which were not ready to start, under a “first ready, first connected” system.

It followed complaints that so-called “zombie projects,” which have little or no chance of being built, are blocking the way of those which are ready to go.

Now plans are under way for the creation of what is essentially a new grouping of energy projects, which will run on a “first ready and needed, first connected” system, leapfrogging over other projects in the queue.

The “needed” element refers to projects which are needed for clean power by 2030.

The plans are being developed by the National Energy System Operator (NESO), a new publicly-owned body tasked with connecting generation projects to the grid.

They would need to be approved by the energy regulator Ofgem, with connections intended to start by the end of 2025.

NESO said: “This is a complex challenge, and it’s important we get it right.”

But the industry is calling for more clarity, amid concerns about legal challenges from companies waiting to get connected in the current queue who may find their dates are being pushed back.

Charles Wood, deputy director of Energy UK, said it was “positive” that the government appeared to have acknowledged the threat of legal challenges.

But he said he would like to see more engagement from senior ministers to “address uncertainty” about the plans for network upgrades.

Merlin Hyman, chief executive of energy think tank Regen, said the plans to allow some projects to jump the queue made “a lot of sense” as the current system was “not fit for purpose”.

But he added: “Such a fundamental change is inevitably causing uncertainty for project developers and we need urgently to provide the clarity and certainty needed to unlock investment at the speed and scale required”.

It comes after initial attempts to purge the existing queue for connection of so-called “zombie projects” resulted in only 10 GW of connection being struck off, according to the Energy Networks Association.

This year, Ofgem put the size of the existing queue at 701 GW, and it’s expected to reach 800 GW by the end of 2024, which is far more than the UK would need by 2050.

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said it planned to submit proposals for reform to Ofgem by the end of the year.

“This includes speeding up the process and reforming the system to remove stalled projects from the queue, so projects which support our 2030 clean power goal can be connected fast,” the spokesperson added.