Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many service personnel have been suspended or reprimanded as a result of incidents and alleged incidents of domestic abuse in each year for which information is available.

Suspension in the Armed Forces is not a form of punishment. It tends to be related to a role or employment – for example, if an incident occurred as a result of a breach of codes of practice, then an individual may be suspended from that role while the incident is investigated.

Domestic abuse is a very important issue and we treat allegations of domestic abuse very seriously. In July 2018, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) launched its first strategy to tackle domestic abuse within the Armed Forces and defence civilian communities. The strategy builds on existing work by the Armed Forces in this area, such as providing specialist training to welfare staff, and included the launch of a campaign to raise awareness of the issue. The MOD is a member of the cross-Government Violence against Women and Girls working group.

The estimated numbers of Service personnel recorded on the Joint Personnel Administration system (JPA) with a reporting category titled ‘Domestic Abuse’ and awarded a sanction as a result of Major Administrative Action (MAA) are shown in the table below:

Source: JPA Discipline (single Service estimates)

Note: figures are rounded to the nearest 5. “~” indicates a figure less than 5.