Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-04-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what proportion of (a) Royal Navy, (b) British Army excluding Gurkhas and (c) Royal Air Force personnel are from an ethnic minority background.

Penny Mordaunt

The Ministry of Defence is committed to achieving a more diverse workforce and is developing plans to meet the Government’s commitment to increase the number of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) recruits into the Armed Forces to 10% by 2020 and have allocated resources for this purpose.

Planning is ongoing to ensure that new activity is evidence-based and resources are allocated in the best way to deliver the step change that is required.

Whilst this plan is being finalised, examples of steps already taken include increased engagement with ethnic minority communities, using communications to improve understanding on careers in the Armed Forces and offering support throughout the application process where it is needed.

The Armed Forces recently won two awards in October 2015 at the Race for Opportunity Awards. The Armed Forces Muslim Association won the Public Sector Employee Network Award and the Royal Air Force won the Future Workforce Award for their Employability Skills Programme. The Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force have also been recognised as two of the Top 10 public sector organisations for race diversity and inclusion by Race for Opportunity.

Statistics on the diversity declaration and representation of minority groups of
Service Personnel employed by the Ministry of Defence are published biannually. The most recent data can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-armed-forces-biannual-diversity-statistics-2015