Which Law is the Ministry Breaking? The MoD’s Impossible Position on Animal Deaths

When asked about military animals euthanised in 2023, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) provided complete records, including the name, breed, and exact cause of death for every animal. When asked the same question about 2024 deaths, they claimed finding this data would be too expensive. The official justification creates a legal impossibility. UK law requires accessible records for animal disposal and veterinary procedures, meaning the MoD cannot be both compliant with regulations and unable to afford access to the very records those laws mandate.

From Perfect Transparency to Total Opacity

It started with the MoD being helpful. Someone submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request asking about animals euthanised in 2023, and they got a proper answer. The Ministry provided everything. 14 military horses and 18 working dogs, with names, dates, and specific medical reasons for each death.

The level of detail was striking. Indigo, a horse euthanised on 22 December 2023 for post-anaesthetic complications. Sam, an English Springer Spaniel working in explosives detection, was put down on 2 October 2023 for a neurological condition. Gino, a German Shepherd, was euthanised the same day because he posed an “unacceptable risk to public safety.” Each entry included not just the animal’s name and date of death, but broke down broad categories like “veterinary condition” into specific diagnoses: colic (3 cases), lameness (5 cases), neurological issues (2 cases), and neoplasia (1 case).

This wasn’t reluctant compliance with FOI requirements. The MoD demonstrated sophisticated data management and even took time to object to terminology, stating that words like “destroyed” were “inaccurate to the treatment provided and lack compassion.” The department framed euthanasia as a last resort, used only when an animal was suffering or posed a safety risk.

Then came 2024, and the transparency vanished completely.

When Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) submitted a nearly identical FOI request covering 2024 and early 2025, the same Army Secretariat that had released detailed 2023 data refused to do so. In a letter dated 20 May 2025, they cited Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act. The reason? Finding this information would require searching “individual records for every animal in service during that time.” They estimated this would take more than four working days, exceeding the £600 cost threshold for government departments.

The contradiction is stark. How does a data system capable of generating name-specific, diagnosis-detailed reports in 2023 suddenly become so fragmented that producing basic numbers for 2024 exceeds cost limits? The MoD offers no explanation for this dramatic degradation in their capabilities. No system crash. No reorganisation. No policy change. Just a wall where transparency once was.

Deconstructing the Cost Exemption

The Ministry’s excuse comes down to money.

They’re using Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that they can refuse any request that would cost more than £600 to fulfil. That’s based on paying someone £25 an hour, so basically 24 hours of work – about three and a half days.

The MoD’s specific claim that it would need to search “every animal in service” to find euthanasia data implies a complete absence of any centralised log or database for such events. This would mean no system for tracking when animals die, no index of veterinary procedures, no searchable records of significant events in an animal’s service history.

That’s a remarkable claim for a military organisation that treats working animals as valuable assets requiring acquisition, training, deployment, and careful management throughout their service lives. The Information Commissioner requires departments to provide “reasonable estimates” for cost exemptions. The MoD’s claim assumes a complete absence of any centralised logging system for euthanasia events, despite having proved the opposite just months earlier.

This defence has become routine. Between 2019 and 2023, the MoD rejected 57% of all refused FOI requests using Section 12. It’s their go-to tool for avoiding disclosure. But the cost exemption doesn’t just strain credibility here; it creates an impossible legal contradiction.

When Official Excuses Meet Legal Reality

The MoD’s position doesn’t exist in a legal vacuum. Multiple UK statutes mandate specific record-keeping for exactly the activities they claim are too expensive to track. These aren’t guidelines or best practices. They’re legal requirements with statutory force.

The Animal By-Products (Enforcement) Regulations 2013 are explicit about what happens when a military animal dies. The carcass becomes an animal by-product, likely classified as a Category 1 or 2 high-risk material.

Every disposal must be accompanied by a “commercial document” that records the date of transport, description and quantity of material, its category, the origin (the MoD establishment), the transporter, and the destination. These aren’t optional fields. The consignor must retain these records for at least two years and produce them upon demand to inspectors from the Animal and Plant Health Agency.

The Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2013 create parallel obligations. Euthanasia requires controlled drugs, typically barbiturates (potent sedatives used to cause peaceful death). When a vet administers these, the animal’s keeper must create and maintain records for a minimum of five years. Required information includes the product name, batch number, date of administration, quantity used, and crucially, “the identification of the animals treated.”

Think about what this means. By law, the MoD must maintain accessible records of every animal carcass disposal and every veterinary euthanasia procedure. A compliant department would have these documents filed and searchable. The very documents that would answer the FOI request.

The MoD’s position creates an impossible choice. Either they’re compliant with these regulations, in which case the required records exist and are accessible, making their FOI refusal dishonest. Or they’re not compliant, meaning they’re violating multiple statutory duties with serious enforcement consequences.

Which law is the Ministry breaking?

When Horses Ran Through London

The timing of the MoD’s reversal of transparency points to a specific trigger.

On 24 April 2024, routine training for the Household Cavalry went catastrophically wrong. Construction noise near Belgravia spooked seven horses. Five bolted, throwing their riders and charging through London’s morning rush hour.

The images went viral immediately.

Vida, a grey horse, and Trojan, a black horse, both covered in what appeared to be blood, were running loose through city streets. Four soldiers were injured. Vehicles were damaged. Eventually, police and military personnel recovered the animals across London.

The MoD’s public relations machine moved quickly to control the narrative. Initial statements confirmed injuries and promised appropriate medical attention.

By 4 June 2024, they’d crafted a recovery story. The horses Trojan, Tennyson, and Vanquish were back on duty, likely to participate in the King’s Birthday Parade “against all expectations.” Vida and Quaker were recuperating at The Horse Trust, “expected to make a full recovery.”

But someone decided to verify it… Dr Iain Overton’s FOI request filed on 17 April 2025 included a pointed question: “Whether any military dogs or horses were euthanised for reasons related to the incident in April 2024 in which Household Cavalry horses were injured after running loose in London.”

This wasn’t a general inquiry. It directly challenged the official narrative of full recovery. The MoD faced a choice. Release data that might contradict their public statements or find a reason not to release any data at all. They chose the Section 12 cost exemption as a convenient shield. Can’t afford to search the records, sorry. No need to confirm or deny anything about those specific horses.

Even if the Household Cavalry horses all survived, any 2024 euthanasia data would create problems. Media coverage was intense. Public concern was high. Any dead horse, even from unrelated causes, would fuel speculation.

The Systematic Shutdown

The animal welfare secrecy isn’t a one off. It’s part of something bigger happening at the Ministry of Defence.

Looking at the numbers. In 2020, the MoD approved half of all FOI requests. By 2023? Down to 42%. That might not sound dramatic, but it’s the worst rate in five years. They’re saying no more often, and when they do, it’s usually National Security this, Commercial Interests that. These four favourite excuses now cover nearly half their refusals.

Here’s where it gets interesting. When people complain to the Information Commissioner about the MoD blocking their requests, the MoD almost always loses. In 2023, the Commissioner sided against them 17 times out of 19. The year before? They lost 29 out of 30 cases. That’s not bad luck. That’s systematic misuse of the rules.

But perhaps most tellingly, despite these overwhelming adverse rulings, the ICO’s limited enforcement powers mean the department rarely faces meaningful consequences for its failures. Nearly all the 2023 cases remained unresolved, with the MoD rarely being forced to release the information in question.

This creates a perverse incentive structure. From a strategic standpoint, the MoD has little to lose by issuing legally dubious refusals. The best-case scenario is that requesters are deterred and information remains secret. The worst-case scenario is a non-binding ruling with no practical penalty.

What Happens When Institutions Stop Counting

The refusal to provide data on military animal deaths parallels an even more troubling transparency failure at the Ministry of Defence. In April 2025, Action on Armed Violence revealed that the MoD has no dedicated unit or systematic mechanism for counting civilian casualties caused by British armed forces.

This isn’t a coincidence. It’s a pattern. The same institutional mindset that obscures the fate of working animals also applies to human civilians caught in conflict zones.

‘Without systems that track loss, be it civilian, soldier, or service animal, there can be no meaningful accountability.’
– Dr Iain Overton, Executive Director, Action on Armed Violence

This goes beyond just dead horses or missing data.

When institutions stop counting their own actions, they create blind spots that prevent learning and improvement. Parliament cannot assess the true cost of military policy if actual data about outcomes do not exist or are systematically withheld. The public cannot evaluate whether resources are being used responsibly if transparency extends only to acquisitions and budgets, not to results and consequences.

The animal welfare cover-up also highlights the limitations of our information laws. The ICO can tell the MoD they’re breaking the rules, but then what? They can’t force them to hand over the documents. There’s no real penalty. So the MoD treats these rulings like parking tickets – annoying but ignorable.

If the MoD can’t provide data on the animals under its direct care, what does that say about its willingness or ability to account for human harm? And what happens when that pattern becomes normal across departments?

Which Law is the Ministry Breaking?

The MoD’s position on animal welfare data has created an impossible contradiction that exposes fundamental flaws in how government secrecy operates. The department cannot simultaneously comply with UK animal disposal and veterinary medicine regulations while legitimately claiming that animal euthanasia records are too expensive to retrieve under FOI provisions.

The rules are clear. When you dispose of an animal carcass, you need paperwork showing the date, origin, and destination. When a vet puts an animal down, you need records of which animal, when, and what drugs were used. You must retain these documents for years and present them to inspectors upon request.

If the MoD is compliant with these legal duties, it has accessible records, and its FOI refusal is misleading. If its records are genuinely as disorganised as claimed, it’s in breach of statutory obligations that govern animal welfare and public health.

The silence from the department on this legal paradox is telling. No attempt has been made to reconcile the conflicting claims or explain how they can simultaneously maintain compliance with veterinary regulations while being unable to access the very records those regulations require.

Think about what this means for every government department. If the MoD can say “sorry, our legally required records are too hard to find,” what’s to stop others from doing the same? It turns the whole system on its head. The very records the law forces them to keep become their excuse for not sharing anything.

The Path Forward

The Ministry of Defence’s reversal on animal welfare transparency represents more than an administrative policy change. It’s a test case for how far government departments can stretch the boundaries of legitimate secrecy in a democracy that depends on institutional accountability.

The evidence demonstrates that the MoD’s cost exemption defence lacks credibility and creates legal contradictions that demand resolution. The department demonstrated its ability to produce detailed animal welfare data by releasing the 2023 figures. Now it claims the same task is impossible – a position that conflicts with its statutory obligations under UK law.

These questions now demand answers from the Ministry of Defence:

1. How can the same data system that produced granular 2023 reports suddenly become too expensive to search in 2024? The department must explain what changes were made to its record-keeping systems or acknowledge that its cost exemption claim lacks a solid foundation.
2. How does the MoD reconcile its claim of inaccessible records with its legal obligations under UK animal disposal and veterinary medicine regulations? The department cannot be both compliant with these laws and unable to access the records they mandate.
3. What role did the April 2024 Household Cavalry incident play in triggering this transparency reversal? The timeline suggests a reactive policy change designed to avoid accountability rather than a principled administrative decision.

The broader implications demand action beyond the Ministry of Defence. Parliament should examine how the cost exemption is being used across government to frustrate legitimate transparency. The Information Commissioner’s Office needs stronger enforcement powers to ensure its rulings have a practical effect.

The Ministry of Defence serves a democracy that depends on informed public oversight of its institutions. That oversight requires access to basic information about what those institutions do, whom they affect, and what results they produce. The refusal to count military animal deaths may seem like a narrow technical issue, but it reveals a dangerous willingness to prioritise institutional convenience over democratic transparency.

In a functioning democracy, the question isn’t whether the public has a right to know how many animals died in military service. The question is whether a government department can simultaneously claim legal compliance and administrative inability when faced with requests for information that democratic oversight requires. The MoD’s answer to that question will determine whether transparency remains a meaningful check on institutional power or becomes another casualty of bureaucratic convenience.

Sources

Sources include: Freedom of Information requests to the Ministry of Defence, including FOI2024/02313 (February 2024) detailing 2023 animal euthanasia data and subsequent refusal FOI2025/08742 (May 2025) citing Section 12 cost exemption; UK legislative texts including The Animal By-Products (Enforcement) Regulations 2013 and The Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2013 establishing mandatory record-keeping requirements; Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) documentation of MoD transparency failures and civilian casualty counting; Information Commissioner’s Office rulings on MoD FOI handling (2022-2023) showing 89% complaint upheld rate; Ministry of Defence annual FOI statistics (2019-2023) documenting declining disclosure rates; contemporary media coverage of the April 2024 Household Cavalry incident from BBC News, The Guardian, and Evening Standard; MoD press releases regarding the recovery status of horses involved in the London incident (June 2024); Dr Iain Overton’s targeted FOI request (April 2025) specifically querying Household Cavalry horse euthanasia; Parliamentary records on MoD accountability and FOI compliance; Animal and Plant Health Agency guidance on animal by-product disposal requirements; Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons guidelines on controlled drug administration and record-keeping; and internal MoD correspondence released under previous FOI requests establishing precedent for animal welfare data disclosure.