Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of employees in his Department who speak Mandarin.

The FCDO only holds figures for staff who have completed FCDO-certified training at C1/C2 levels: this does not include our Country-Based Staff, many of whom are multilingual. 64 members of staff currently have valid exam passes in Mandarin at C1, including 23 at C2. Exam passes are valid for five years.