Captain GARRO-JONESasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the total number of civil servants of the administrative class in the Foreign Office 2017W and in the Diplomatic Service; and the total number who have either a father or a mother who was not of British birth?
§ Mr. A. CHAMBERLAINThe reply to the first part of the question is 195. This includes all members of the service at home and abroad from the rank of third secretary to that of Ambassador. Under existing regulations, candidates for the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service must be natural-born British subjects, and born within the United Kingdom or in one of the self-governing Dominions of parents also born within those territories, except when the circumstances are such as to justify a departure from the general rule, in which case they can be allowed to compete by special permission of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, provided they fulfil the conditions of the rule in respect of nationality prescribed for candidates for admission to His Majesty's Civil Service as a whole. But many members of the Service entered it before these regulations were in existence, and with regard to them I do not possess the information that would enable me to answer the last part of the question.