To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will place in the Library a copy of a speech by Mr. Sherrard Cowper-Coles, first secretary at the British embassy in Washington, to the Boston investor responsibility research centre.

The reports of the remarks by the British official at a seminar in Boston on 11 October have selected comments from a briefing which was being given to increase support in the United States for fair employment legislation in Northern Ireland. The official was not speaking from a text.I regret the offence which has been caused by these remarks. They do not reflect the views of Her Majesty's Government.