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Written question asked by Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative) on Tuesday, 1 April 2025, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 7 April 2025 (named day). It was answered by Al Carns (Labour) on Monday, 7 April 2025 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Armed Forces: Hearing Impairment

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many claims for hearing loss have there been in the (a) British Army and Army Reserve, (b) Royal Air Force and Air Force Volunteer Reserve (c) Royal Navy and Royal Navy Reserve, excluding the Royal Marines and (d) Royal Marines and Royal Marine Reserve for injuries sustained between March 2003 and the implementation of the Tactical Hearing Protection System program.

Answer

The implementation of the Tactical Hearing Protection System programme took place between April 2015 and Sep 2016.

Between 1 April 2003 and 31 March 2015 there were approximately 16,000 common law compensation claims for Noise-induced hearing loss from Defence personnel.

As this is based on historic data on legacy systems it is not possible to be more specific or break down the figure between Service and Civilian personnel. This does not include claims made via the Armed Forces Compensation and War Pension schemes as providing breakdowns would require information from three different data systems to be combined and individual files to be manually reviewed which would incur disproportionate cost.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
43396
Session
2024-26
Subjects
Compensation Armed forces Hearing impairment Injuries Protective clothing
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk