asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the numbers of entrants to his Department from the ethnic minorities in the years 1985–86 and 1986–87; if he will also list the monitoring procedures used to ascertain the percentage of the work force represented by ethnic minorities and their patterns of promotion; and what are his methods of recruitment of minorities into the Department.

Voluntary ethnic monitoring of new entrants has been carried out since 1 October 1985 in the development wing of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and since 1 April 1986 in the diplomatic wing. The latest available information is as follows:

New entrants to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office development wing in period 1 October 1985 to 30 September 1986
	Number
TOTAL	88
Ethnic origins
White	33
Black/Asian	4
Not stated1	51
1 Did not respond to survey questionnaire.

New entrants to Foreign and Commonwealth Office diplomatic wing in period 1 April 1986 to 28 February 1987
	Number
TOTAL	433
Ethnic origins
White	187
Black/Asian	8
Not stated1	238
1 Did not respond to survey Questionnaire.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is participating in a survey of the ethnic origin of non-industrial civil servants by means of voluntary self-classification. Consideration is being given to ways of using the data on the ethnic origin of staff in post to monitor promotion.