Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will (a) include and (b) publish data on personnel under the age of 18 in the armed forces' periodic sexual harassment surveys.

Unacceptable behaviour is not tolerated in Defence, and anyone failing to meet our values and standards will be dealt with robustly. There is no place in the Armed Forces for unacceptable sexual behaviour; the Armed Forces have a ‘zero tolerance’ policy with a presumption of discharge for any Service Person who engages in unacceptable sexual behaviour.

Defence is working to prevent and tackle all forms of unacceptable behaviour, including sexual harassment. The importance of tackling this type of behaviour is recognised at the highest levels of Defence; the leadership of Defence are fully committed to taking the actions required to tackle this type of behaviour. To do this, we need more people to report sexual harassment when it happens. Reports of sexual harassment will be treated seriously, sensitively, promptly and in confidence.

Sexual harassment can be reported through informal or formal complaints processes, and any formal complaint of sexual harassment will be thoroughly investigated, and appropriate action taken. If the harassment is judged to amount to unlawful conduct, individuals are encouraged to contact the Service, civilian or Ministry of Defence police.

Where a Service Complaint has been raised for sexual harassment by a member of the Armed Forces, it is dealt with entirely outside the individual’s chain of command; it is investigated by the Outsourced Investigation Service and an Independent Member oversees the Decision and Appeal Bodies, to ensure the case is dealt with fairly.

The results of the single Service sexual harassment surveys 2021 (published in March 2022) can be found at the following website: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/sexual-harassment-surveys-2021 Results for under-18s will be included in the aggregated published results. If the sample size is large enough for under-18s, we will consider publishing results for under-18s as a group as well. It must be noted that this age demographic is very small, and we cannot confirm that we will have enough responses for publication.