U.K. To Have One Diplomatic Service

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30378, 29 February 1964, Page 13

U.K. To Have One Diplomatic Service

(N .ZJ’.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, Feb. 28. The British Prime Minister (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) said yesterday that from *1965 Britain’s foreign and Commonwealth representation overseas would operate jointly through a new service—Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service. He told the House of Commons that the Foreign Office, headed by Mr Butler as Foreign Secretary, and the Commonwealth Secretary, would however remain separate. The Prime Minister said the unified service had been recommended by a seven-man official committee headed by Lord Plowden, the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Authority, after a searching review of Britain’s overseas representation. At present Britain is represented in foreign countries by

ambassadors and diplomats appointed by the Foreign Office, and in Commonwealth countries by high commissioners and their staff appointed by the Commonwealth Relations Office. From January 1 next year all these diplomats will belong to the united service, and will share common communications. Wider Field ' The Plowden report notes that a large proportion of recruits to the diplomatic service will always come from the traditional sources: the exclusive public schools, and the two old-established universities, Oxford and Cambridge. But the future diplomats, it recommends, should be drawn from the widest possible field, regardless of the social background and private wealth of the candidates.

The report says that, at present 70 per cent of successful applicants in the senior branch of the Foreign Service come from the exclusive public schools, and nearly 95 per

cent of them from Oxford and Cambridge. Only 27 members of the Foreign Service at present hold science degrees. “This figure is not large enough,” it says.

Pointless Limit On Women The report also says that the present rule limiting the intake of women into the senior branch to 10 per cent of recruits each year “is a pointless irritant” and should be dropped. A more flexible attitude should be taken to allow women to stay in the service after they marry, and women should be employed as widely as possible “with no artificial or unnecessary restrictions ... on their duties or postings.” The report says: “We should like to make it clear that we received no evidence which would suggest that women in the Foreign Service have proved ‘tender plants.’ “We came upon not a few instances in which, to put it no higher, they had withstood disagreeable climatic, political or living conditions with fully as much resource or fortitude as their maH'colleagues.”