Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many service personnel were dishonourably discharged on the grounds of their sexual orientation from the (a) Royal Navy excluding the Royal Marines, (b) Royal Marines, (c) Army and (d) Royal Air Force in each year from 1986 to 2000.

The information requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Dishonourable discharge is not a term used by the UK Armed Forces. In order to positively identify those discharges which were definitely related to sexual orientation, the Ministry of Defence would have to conduct a manual search of the files of all Service personnel discharged under the relevant regulations of 'misconduct' and 'services no longer required', both of which encompass a wide range of conduct and behaviour.

Since changes were made to the law in 2000 to allow homosexual men, lesbians and transgender personnel to serve openly in the Armed Forces, the Ministry of Defence has taken many positive steps to support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender staff. The Royal Navy and the Army currently feature in Stonewall's Top 100 Employers list, and Stonewall has also publically praised Defence on our approach to ensuring that our workforce is as diverse as possible.