Graham Allen – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Allen on 2016-01-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the comments made by a spokesperson of his Department made in an article published in the Herald newspaper on 10 January 2016, and pursuant to his oral contribution of 18 January 2016, Official Report, column 1118, if his Department will retrospectively re-examine reports of civilian casualties received from September 2014 to January 2016 to see whether any credible reports of potential civilian casualties from UK strikes were overlooked.

Penny Mordaunt

There has been no change in Ministry of Defence (MOD) policy with regard to considering external reports when making an assessment of possible civilian casualties resulting from air strikes.

The MOD takes allegations of civilian casualties very seriously and we do an assessment after every British strike of the damage that has been caused, and check very carefully whether there are likely to have been civilian casualties. As has always been the case, we continue to consider all available credible evidence to support such assessments.