asked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make the gathering of information on ethnic origins compulsory, and publish the percentage of entrants to his Department who failed to respond to the ethnic origins questionnaire.

I have no plans to do so. In the period 1 October 1985 to 1 March 1987, 28 per cent. of new entrants to my Department did not complete an ethnic monitoring questionnaire or gave an invalid response.