Member

I fully recognise the profound distress that the posts have caused, in particular to the Jewish community in this country, and especially in the context of rising antisemitism and recent horrific attacks against Jewish people in this country and around the world, and I very much regret that. The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and I were all unaware of those historical posts, as were the civil servants working on the case. The Foreign Secretary has therefore asked the Permanent Under-Secretary to urgently review the department’s systems for conducting due diligence on high-profile consular and human rights cases to ensure that all necessary lessons are learned. The Foreign Secretary has undertaken to update the Foreign Affairs Committee on the changes that the department will put in place.