Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many people with a disability work in his Department; and if he will make a statement.

To build a world class Civil Service we need to recruit and retain the very best Civil Servants on merit, irrespective of whether they are disabled.

As of 1 October 2014, 47.48% (26,340) of staff in the Ministry of Defence and its Trading Funds have chosen to declare their disability status; of these, around 2,515 have made a positive disability declaration. This data is based on the numbers of employees who have chosen individually to record their disability status on the departmental Human Resource (HR) system. Any such declaration is voluntary and confidential.