Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his oral contribution of 11 June 2018, Official Report, column 581, what the evidential basis is for 70 per cent of service personnel based in Scotland paying higher taxes.

The Ministry of Defence has examined payroll data held by the Department and, on two occasions 12 months apart, identified all those Regular personnel issued with a Scottish tax code and their taxable earnings in the previous year. In both cases approximately 70% of these were found to have earned above the £26,000 threshold beyond which they would be liable in Tax Year 2018-19 to pay more income tax in Scotland compared to other Service personnel with the same taxable earnings paying income tax in the rest of the UK.