Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Armed Forces personnel have reported exposure to what types of chemicals in what situations in each year since 2003.

The information requested is shown in the table below. Information on the types of chemical used at the time of each incident is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. The incidents in question were identified through the use of free text searches of computerised records; the numbers are therefore based on reporting of suspected cases, and so are not confirmed incidents.

Industrial incidents involving exposure of Armed Forces Personnel¹ to chemicals, by mechanism, 1 January 2003 to 31 March 2014 (latest date available)

¹ Armed Forces Personnel includes all Army, Navy, Royal Marine and RAF personnel.

² In line with Defence Statistics' rounding policy for health statistics (May 2009), and in keeping with the Office for National Statistics Guidelines, all numbers less than five have been removed and presented as '~'. Where there is only one cell in a row or column that is less than five, the next smallest number (or numbers where there are tied values) has also been removed so that numbers cannot simply be derived from totals.

³ The numbers are presented as totals for the whole time period rather than broken down by year, as to do the latter would necessitate including a disproportionate amount of tildas (~) and dashes (-) to signify numbers fewer than five.