European External Action Service - Question

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 2:36 pm on 12 March 2018.

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Photo of Lord Ricketts Lord Ricketts Crossbench 2:36, 12 March 2018

My Lords, it is always a pleasure as a former Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office to hear warm words about British diplomats, and I entirely agree with the need to deploy more British diplomats to EU capitals and to Brussels to carry out old-fashioned diplomacy, probably from the outside, to influence the EU. Perhaps what noble Lords are saying is that the Foreign Office needs an overall increase in its budget in order to be able to deploy more diplomats everywhere.