Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many members of the armed forces have been promoted after being disciplined for (a) sexual harassment, (b) abuse and (c) assault in each of the last five years.

Defence has been clear that unacceptable behaviour and criminality has no place in the Armed Forces and will not be tolerated.

Under the Ministry of Defence’s ‘Zero Tolerance to Sexual Offending and Sexual Relationships Between in Instructors and Trainees’ policy, all Service persons who are convicted of a sexual offence, or who are placed on the Sex Offenders Register, will be dismissed from the Armed Forces as a matter of course.

The requested information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.