Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to recruit to the (a) the armed forces and (b) his Department more (i) BAME people, (ii) LGBT people, (iii) people with disabilities and (iv) people from non-Christian religious groups.

Over recent years, Defence has increasingly challenged itself to become a more diverse and inclusive organisation. This is not just the right thing do from a moral perspective, there is a business imperative for taking radical action - a diverse and inclusive organisation is a stronger, healthier and more resilient organisation.

Defence is dedicated to achieving a more diverse workforce and is undertaking a wide range of activities to increase the diversity of our people. These include:

• Community Engagement - Increased and more targeted engagement with communities. Specialist and youth engagement teams have been set up in each of the Services.

• Using staff networks and diversity champions to support our diverse range of personnel and outreach into the community - The appointment of an Islamic Religious Adviser to the Chief of the Defence Staff, to help improve mutual understanding between Muslim communities and the Armed Forces.

• Recruitment Process - existing recruitment processes are being examined to remove any unconscious bias and to improve support and mentoring for candidates. For civilian staff, Ministry of Defence has been a Disability Confident leader since 2017.

• Marketing - increase in targeted marketing activities.

• Membership of - Business Disability Forum, Business in the Community (for both Gender and Race), Stonewall. This enables benchmarking of Defence’s performance against other public sector organisations and the private sector.