Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 29 April (HL16424), what is the rationale for not including white Irish under the internship; and what assessment has been made of whether this is positive discrimination against young people who are (1) white British, or (2) white Irish, given the absence of any other internship scheme open to them in that public body.

The SIS Summer Intelligence Internship is one of a number of lawful measures (as set out in The Equality Act 2010) used to encourage people from under-represented demographics to consider national security careers.

In addition to the Summer Internship scheme, SIS runs other placements and apprenticeships. The details of which are regularly published on their website. All schemes are only open to those who meet the required British, or British dual-national, nationality criteria.