Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his Department's new Zero Tolerance approach to sexual offences published on 30 March 2022, whether his Department will be (a) collecting and (b) publishing data on the number of service personnel discharged through the policy.

Sexual offence convictions that pre-date the introduction of the Zero Tolerance policy will be dealt with in accordance with the relevant single Service policy, which may well result, or have resulted, in discharge.

Data will be collected to understand the number of personnel discharged as a result of the policy, but it has not yet been decided whether the data will be published.