Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many claims have been made by solicitors on the conduct of UK servicemen and servicewomen, in the last 25 years.

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

Whilst some information is held relating to the question posed, that information is not sufficient to enable the provision of a full response to this question. The Department does not record separately information that would serve to confirm the causative nature of the incident that gives rise to individual claims and therefore it is not possible to determine which of those claims received during the past 25 years arose out of the conduct of UK servicemen and servicewomen without reviewing all of the common law claims for damages received in that period. However, it is possible to confirm that some 2,300 common law claims for compensation including allegations relating to death, injury and varying degrees of mistreatment arising from the actions of UK Forces personnel operating in Northern Ireland, Iraq and the Gulf and Afghanistan have been received within the specified time period.