Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many cases of suicide by serving armed forces personnel resulted in a full service enquiry between 2002 and 2012.

Service inquiries were introduced on 1 October 2008, to replace the three single-Service systems of boards of inquiry. In the period from 1 October 2008 until 31 December 2012, the number of cases in which the death of a Service person was confirmed by a coroner (or the procurator fiscal for Scotland) as a suicide, and for which a service inquiry was held, is four.

The number of cases in the Naval Service for which a board of inquiry was convened into a death confirmed as a suicide in the period from 1 January 2002 until 30 September 2008 is seven. Information about the number of boards of inquiry convened by either the Army or the RAF before October 2008 is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.