Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many complaints made by serving Armed Forces personnel made on alleged racism in the Armed Forces in each year since 2010.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) recognises that unacceptable behaviour, including racism, still occurs. MOD and the UK Armed Forces are committed to taking action to eradicate it and have a zero-tolerance approach. Defence, like many other organisations, does not yet represent society and it is essential that it does. We are committed to making the step changes required to create a more inclusive environment for all, enabling everyone, irrespective of background, to deliver our Defence outputs, enhance our operational effectiveness and better represent the nation we serve. Our department-wide Diversity and Inclusion strategy ​and Race Action Plan clearly sets out a challenging vision, goals, objectives and commitments of where we want to see change. We continue a wide programme of work to prevent and tackle unacceptable behaviour.

All allegations of illegal or unacceptable behaviour are taken extremely seriously and investigated thoroughly. Service personnel have a number of routes to raise the issue, either with the police, within the Chain of Command or with Diversity and Inclusion Advisers. MOD has mandated Active Bystander training so that personnel have the skills to challenge unacceptable behaviour effectively when it does occur.

Information on the number of complaints made due to alleged racism is not readily available and an answer could only be provided at disproportionate cost. Allegations of racism are captured through various mechanisms, including internal and external disciplinary proceedings, the Service Complaints system, informal complaints and the Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey. Defence is working to improve its data capture of all unacceptable behaviour across the department.

The Service Complaints Ombudsman for the Armed Forces (SCOAF)'s annual report cites the issue of overrepresentation by ethnic minorities within the complaints system, but these complaints do not only concern racial discrimination. However, information from the single Services' annual statistical returns on Service Complaints to the SCOAF indicates that in 2019, five per cent of all bullying, harassment or discrimination Service Complaints concerned racial discrimination; this reduced to three per cent in 2020 and 2021.