Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much GCHQ spent from the public purse on sponsorship of the National Diversity Awards 2017; and how many full-time equivalent GCHQ staff worked on that project.

Any law enforcement or intelligence agency must represent the diverse communities it serves to enable them to gather the intelligence they need to keep us all safe. Diversity is therefore recognised as a crucial component of the intelligence agencies' workforce. The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament recognised as much when they carried out an inquiry on Parliament's behalf into women in the intelligence agencies.

It has been the longstanding policy of successive Governments not to reveal details of the budgets or spending of the intelligence agencies. Statutory oversight for budgets and expenditure of the intelligence agencies is provided by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.