UK’S top spies can blend in ... as long as crowd is all white

MI5 and MI6 have no senior leaders from black or minority ethnic backgrounds, figures show, as MPS warned of a “glaring lack” of diversity in the intelligence services.

Of all the UK security services, only GCHQ had any senior staff who identify as black, Asian or minority ethnic, a report by the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee found.

The report also highlighted concerns about the lack of senior women in all the UK’S intelligence services, which employ more than 17,000 staff in total. Of those, just 288 senior managers are non-white and all of them work at GCHQ.

The criticism came as Alex Younger, the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, admitted “groupthink” was a danger for spy chiefs.

MPS looked at MI6, MI5, GCHQ, Defence Intelligence, the Office for Security and Counter-terrorism, the Joint Intelligence Organisation and the National Security Secretariat.

They called on the agencies to think again about their vetting and recruitment policies, particularly strict rules requiring applicants to have at least one parent who is a British citizen.