Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many security passes for his Department have been reported as (a) missing and (b) stolen in the last 12 months.

The Government takes the protection of information extremely seriously and is exploring a number of measures to reduce future losses.. Departments are required to have robust controls in place to manage risk to their assets including data and mobile devices.

Security pass losses are reported to the Joint Security Coordination Centre and recorded on the central repository for Defence security incidents. All security incidents are fully investigated so that the impact can be assessed and mitigated, root cause determined and lessons identified. Any security pass reported as lost is immediately deactivated.

Approximately 250,000 personnel are employed across the breadth of Defence and in the last 12 months the Department has lost 3,531 passes and had 285 stolen.