Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to help mitigate injury rates among armed forces personnel during training exercises.

The Ministry of Defence is committed to the health and safety of our people and we have robust policies and processes in place to safely manage our training activities.

Defence activity can be inherently hazardous. This risk to our people is rendered as low as reasonably practicable and tolerable during training by ensuring that its design and delivery are subject to strict safety procedures, rigorous risk assessment and assurance.

All Defence training is risk assessed and conducted within a Safe System of Training (SST), which sets the conditions under which training is delivered.

Like a Safe System of Work, a SST puts in place control measures arising from a risk assessment, in order to manage identified hazards, which are broken down into four elements; safe person, safe equipment, safe place and safe practice. The SST also recognises that those undergoing training cannot be assumed to be competent until they have successfully completed their training and gained the necessary experience.