Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much MI5 spent from the public purse on sponsorship of the National Diversity Awards 2017; and how many full-time equivalent MI5 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 this is provided by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.