§ Mr. GeorgeTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many private security firms have been employed by his Department for each of the last 10 years; what has been the annual value of the contracts; and if he will estimate how many guards have been employed for each of those years.
§ Mr. GoodladTo the best of our knowledge, only one private security company has been employed by the FCO in this country in the past 10 years. Southern Security Guards Ltd. were employed between October 1992 and April 1993 to guard Wiston house conference centre. Two to four guards are employed at a cost of £2,998.52.
No central record is kept of security companies employed by our overseas posts.