Steven Paterson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steven Paterson on 2016-03-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, on how many occasions his Department has not provided substantive answers to written parliamentary questions by stating that disclosure of the information would likely prejudice the capability, effectiveness, or security of our Armed Forces or Allies in this parliamentary session.

Penny Mordaunt

Since the start of the 2015-16 session of Parliament to 17 March 2016, 47 written parliamentary questions (PQs) tabled to the Ministry of Defence (MOD) were not answered because disclosure would have been likely to prejudice the capability, effectiveness, or security of our Armed Forces or Allies. This figure represents 2% of the total number of 2,318 PQs answered by the MOD during that period.

In 19 further PQs, only part of the answer was withheld so as to protect the capability, effectiveness, or security of our Armed Forces or Allies.