PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Housing: Military Personnel and Families - 6 January 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

I thank my hon. Friends for raising an exceptionally important matter. The deal to sell off most of our service family accommodation in 1996, then rent it back and upgrade it, is probably one of the worst deals I can think of. The recent Annington homes deal, supported by those on both sides of the House, was delivered at speed by this Government, and it saves this country and the taxpayer £600,000 a day, or £230 million a year. It puts us back in the driving seat of owning all our family accommodation. It allows us to renovate or rebuild as required over the next five to 10 years and long into the future. In the medium to long term, we have a once-in-a-generation, lifetime opportunity to rebuild all our accommodation.

May I wish a happy new year to you, Mr Speaker, to Members and to constituents in North Somerset?

Morale in our military hit record lows under the last Government, and I am proud that this Government have already delivered the largest pay rise for the forces in more than 20 years. Does the Minister agree that this housing deal is the next practical step in the action that this Government are delivering to improve service lives for dedicated personnel?

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I have lived in some of the accommodation and I have seen how bad it is, and this deal will allow us to change that. Over time we will have a chance, saving £230 million a year, to give the people who serve this country the deal they deserve when it comes to housing.

During my service in the late ’80s, through the ’90s and into the early 2000s, I had the pleasure of having to live in military accommodation. Its poor condition was discussed almost weekly. Roll forward 20 years, and we are still having the same discussion. Can Ministers please assure me that they will now seriously get a grip of that and, through the strategic defence review, give some clear programme delivery dates for when we will deliver for our forces?

Absolutely. As part of the SDR, we will set out our new defence housing strategy. We will look at how we take Annington, build on it and improve the housing available for those who serve in our armed forces.

We are buying back, we are breaking it down and we will build back up. That will be part of a comprehensive plan across the country and across 36,000 homes over time. It will look to deliver housing that is fit for those who serve and the family members who are often left behind when those individuals deploy. I have absolute confidence that we will deliver that, in conjunction with independent bodies as well as those in defence.

The Minister has already referred to his successful £6 billion deal to repurchase the MOD housing estate from Annington. It will give members of our armed forces the opportunity to have their homes refurbished, which they have longed for, for a very long time. Has he managed to persuade the Treasury that he will need to provide further funds to pump-prime these improvements? If so, how will he strengthen the hitherto very poor management of our military housing estate?

As part of our new defence housing strategy, we will look at how we will manage that estate as a whole and whether we will do it completely differently. As part of the SDR, we will look at how we will pump-prime some of that to get building back across the whole defence estate, bearing in mind that there are 36,000 houses and some of them have been in situ for about 50 years and will need to be knocked down and rebuilt.

Under the previous arrangement between the Ministry of Defence and Annington, £100 million was released for accommodation upgrades in the first seven years of that arrangement. What due diligence was carried out ahead of the sale? What additional investment will be made in the married quarters that the Government have brought back into the MOD’s ownership?

This is one of the best deals that defence has done in a long time. It has bought back 36,000 homes, saving the taxpayer £600,000 a day or £230 million over a year. We are in discussions with the Treasury now about where that money goes and how it will be used in the future, but I assure the hon. Member that the rebuild plan will be within the defence housing strategy as part of the SDR.

Since October 2023, more than 5,000 Afghans eligible for support via the Afghan relocations and assistance policy have been moved into Ministry of Defence service families accommodation—both transitional and then settled service families accommodation—under Operation Lazurite. How many SFA houses in the defence estate are currently being used to house Afghan families? What is the plan for their onward movement once their three-year eligibility for settled service families accommodation has elapsed?

I thank the hon. Member for that really important question. We have a duty of care to those from Afghanistan who are now living in the UK and we are absolutely committed to delivering on that. I will write to him in due course on the specifics of his question.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

In 2023, there were over 5,000 reports of damp and mould in service accommodation. Members of the armed forces are willing to put their lives on the line to support the freedoms that we take for granted, so it is inconceivable that they and their families are forced to live in homes filled with damp and mould. Now that the MOD has agreed to buy back thousands of these family homes, will the Government commit to ensuring that all service family accommodation meets the minimum standards for social housing as set out in the decent homes standard?

We already do that. The reality is that a large proportion of these houses were built 50 to 60 years ago, so the thick insulation and double-skinned walls that we would see as commonplace just do not exist. The Annington deal is therefore such a good one, as it allows us to refurbish or rebuild as required.