Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 25 January 2023 to Question 125224 on Armed Forces: Homosexuality, whether his Department is aware of earlier destruction of relevant records.

Almost all police investigative records concerning gay and lesbian personnel before 2000 have been destroyed. Service Police investigative records are routinely and lawfully destroyed, in line with data protection legislation and Ministry of Defence (MOD) policy prescribing retention periods based on category of offence. Once records no longer have an investigative value there is no basis for retaining them, particularly as they contain sensitive personal information.

Our research into this topic indicates that relevant records were generally managed and retained in the same way as records of other offences, in line with data protection legislation and MOD policy at the time. Archived communications suggest the exceptions to this are:

• In 2000 the targeted removal of written warnings that had been placed on individual service records, where homosexuality was suspected but not proven, after the lifting of the ban on homosexuals serving in the Armed Forces made such warnings inapplicable.
• In the 1990s and 2000s, the collation and preservation of some records concerning homosexuality that was undertaken due to litigation against MOD.
• Some Royal Navy Special Investigation Branch paper investigative records from the 1990s escaped routine destruction by chance and still exist. MOD intend to use these records to improve their understanding of how gay and lesbian personnel were treated by the Armed Forces.
• The general destruction in 2010 and 2011 of most remaining investigative records, in line with MOD policy at the time and communicated by the Defence Police Chiefs Forum. The destruction of investigative records did not include personnel service records, which remain intact.