To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many requests his Department has received under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in each of the last three years; in how many cases requests were refused; and what the average time taken to respond to such requests was. (245115)

Under the Freedom of Information Act we are obliged to send a response within 20 working days, and to record for performance purposes, whether this deadline was met or not.

Statistics for the last three complete years for all Government Departments are published on the Ministry of Justice website (see following table), which includes the number of requests made to each Department, and the number refused. It also gives a percentage of those answered ‘in time’ (normally within the 20 working day deadline). The Department does not record an average time for responding.