David Lammy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Lammy on 2016-05-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 27 April 2016 to Question 34579, what plans his Department has to publish information on the performance of the Defence Diversity and Inclusion Programme in increasing the diversity of the armed forces since that programme was established.

Penny Mordaunt

The Defence Diversity and Inclusion Programme (DDIP) is driving change in the core areas of leadership and culture; recruitment; retention and progression; and outreach by ensuring diversity and inclusion considerations as part of normal business across the whole Department. This involves staff and funding across all areas of the Department, to define how this should be done and ensure delivery as part of people’s existing roles wherever they work.

The Ministry of Defence is dedicated to achieving a more diverse workforce and is undertaking various activities to increase the number of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) recruits into the Armed Forces to 10% by 2020 and has allocated resources for this purpose.

The cost of funding the DDIP is disaggregated amongst budgets across the Department; therefore a response could only be provided at disproportionate cost. As part of the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review we dedicated additional resources to recruitment activity in order to help generate a more diverse workforce and reach all parts of the UK’s Armed Forces community.