Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of trends in the proportion of formal Service Complaints made by women in the Armed Forces.

The Ministry of Defence commissioned a report following the Service Complaints Ombudsman for the Armed Forces’ request for an independent investigation into the overrepresentation of women and ethnic minorities in the Service complaints system. The 2020 study sought to better understand the reasons behind this overrepresentation and identified the need for targeted improvements for women in career progression, flexible working and issues around facilities/infrastructure. The report included several recommendations, many of which were taken into the Women in the Armed Forces programme of work, such as Service complaints no longer being submitted through the Chain of Command, but instead through single Service Central Admissibility teams. This will mean greater independence and confidence in the system, consistency in approach and swifter decision making.