Women in the Armed Forces

I thank the hon. Member for his question. He has been extremely supportive throughout this work, and, like me, sits on the Defence Committee. He is quite right: we both identified that we needed to make sure that the voice of the junior ranks was equal to that of the senior ranks. I know that the Ministry of Defence has referred back to the women’s defence network, and I have assurances from the Secretary of State that there was junior rank representation on that Committee. As far as leadership is concerned, the MOD has introduced a raft of initiatives around leadership. Performance assessments have been adapted to make sure that underperforming officers are sanctioned with a process that makes it easier to get them removed from their positions, but we, the Defence Committee, will keep a watching brief on this.