Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Black and ethnic minority staff are employed by his Department.

The Armed Forces represent the society they serve and diversity and inclusion is essential to their operational effectiveness. Defence has committed to a Diversity and Inclusion strategy and is working hard to achieve a more diverse workforce. Whilst progress has been made in the representative rates of our people, there is further to go if we are to successfully attract and retain diverse talent, both now and in the future. That is why we have renewed our levels of ambition at the highest levels in Defence as we work to fulfil the key objective in our 2018-2030 Diversity and Inclusion Strategy to eliminate discrimination and improve diversity.

As at 1 April 2021, there were 13,690 Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Regular Service personnel in the UK Armed Forces. This equates to a representation rate of 9.2 per cent, an increase of 0.4 percentage points compared with 1 April 2020. At the same date, there were 2,030 BAME civilian personnel working in MOD (Main). This equates to a representation rate of 6.3 per cent, a rise of 1.8 percentage points compared with 1 April 2017.

Defence publishes biannual statistics on diversity declarations for Armed Forces personnel and MOD civilian staff. The latest editions can be found at the following links:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-armed-forces-biannual-diversity-statistics-index

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/mod-diversity-dashboard-index