Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Overseas Security and Justice Assistance assessments completed by his Department in relation to requests for capacity-building support were the subject of consultation with Ministers in (i) 2015-16, (ii) 2016-17, (iii) 2017-18, (iv) 2018-19, (v) 2019-20 and (vi) 2020-21.

In line with HMG's Overseas Security and Justice Assistance (OSJA) guidance, all MOD security and justice assistance programmes are required to assess and mitigate potential risks from UK activity. A decision must be made at an appropriate level as to whether proposed activity should begin, and whether existing activity should continue. Also in line with the OSJA guidance, annual reviews of these programmes assess risks and mitigations are also undertaken. Authority for activity underpinned by OSJA assessments is made at different levels according to the risk, from defence personnel in-country to Ministers.

The FCDO’s Human Rights and Democracy reports provides an estimate of the number of new OSJA assessments completed across government during the financial year (FY). These are:

The full OSJA guidance and regional breakdowns of the estimated OSJA totals are publicly available on the government’s website.

The MOD does not hold a record centrally of the number of times a MOD Minister were consulted on OSJA cases or the number of times a Minister decided relevant assistance should be provided.