Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to the article entitled Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war, published in the Observer on 2 March 2003, whether his Department undertook surveillance of representatives at the UN from (a) Angola, (b) Cameroon, (c) Chile, (d) Bulgaria, (e) Guinea and (f) Pakistan prior to the UN Security Council vote on a second resolution on intervention in Iraq.

It is the longstanding policy of successive British Governments not to comment on intelligence matters.

The Government deplores the leaking of any classified information, wherever it occurs. Such leaks can make the work of maintaining the security of our own country and that of our allies more difficult.