Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what proportion of recruits to the armed forces in 2019 were female.

The requested information can be found in the ‘Female Intake’ and ‘Gender’ sections of the published 2020 and 2019 Biannual Diversity Statistics:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/943009/Biannual_Diversity_Statistics_Publication_Oct20.pdf
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/851974/UK_Armed_Forces_Biannual_Diversity_Statistics_-_1_October_2019.pdf

Defence remains dedicated to achieving a more diverse workforce and is undertaking a wide range of activities to increase the number of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and female recruits into the Armed Forces. In 2015 we set ourselves ambitious targets to increase the diversity of personnel joining the Armed Forces by 2020; for female personnel, this was set at 15 per cent. Although progress has been made and the proportion of women joining increased during this period, we fell just under three per cent short of our target and thus recognise that there is still more to do.