Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether his Department operates a ban the box employment policy in respect of ex-offender job applicants with unspent convictions; and how many employees of his Department have unspent convictions.

The Foreign and Commonwelath Office (FCO) does not ask about the criminal convictions of job applicants at the application stage. Spent and unspent criminal convictions are inspected as part of security clearance checks, which all staff recruited to the FCO undergo. Holding security clearance is a prerequisite for employment with the FCO.

We do not keep data on the number of staff or new entrants who have a criminal record and/or unspent convictions.