Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, for what reason the Zero Tolerance approach to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse policy excludes the use of (a) transactional sex and (b) transactional sex of trafficked victims by military personnel in the United Kingdom; and states that this policy applies only to those deployed abroad.

The Zero Tolerance approach to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse policy is intended to deal with specific issues that arise if members of the Armed Forces pay for transactional sex when deployed or based outside the UK. Service personnel will often be deployed on training or operations in States which are less economically developed or where civil society has broken down, which means, as with aid workers, transactional sex is likely to be exploitative and harmful. Transactional sex between locals and service personnel is also illegal in many States and risks damaging relations between the armed forces and the local population and may harm the reputation of the UK and its armed forces.

It should be noted that Service personnel are always subject to UK criminal law, whether at home or deployed outside the UK, which bans soliciting and payment for the sexual services of a prostitute subject to exploitation or coercion. In addition, wherever they are, their conduct must always be consistent with the values of the armed forces and must not bring the Armed Forces into disrepute.