Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many complaints have been made to the Armed Forces Service Complaints Process for allegations of a) racism, b) bullying, c) sexism, and d) harassment, in each year since 2010.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the UK Armed Forces are committed to taking action to eradicate 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 issues, 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 any witnessed unacceptable behaviour effectively when it does occur.

Information on the number of complaints made due to alleged racism or sexism is not readily available and an answer could only be provided at disproportionate cost. Allegations of racism or sexism are captured through various systems, 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.

Information on the numbers of Service Complaints concerning bullying, harassment and discrimination is available through the SCOAF’s annual reports (2016 to 2021) and the Service Complaints Commissioner’s annual reports (2010 to 2015), all of which are available at the following website: www.scoaf.org.uk/annual-reports