Armed Forces Housing Accommodation

12. What recent assessment he has made of the quality of housing accommodation for armed forces personnel.

As of 6 June 2022, 96% of service family accommodation has been assessed as meeting or exceeding the Government’s decent homes standard. Housing below that standard is not allocated to service families because we are putting service families at the heart of defence, and that is reflected in the provision of their quarters.

In my recent visits to UK military bases, many of our servicemen and women raised with me the issue of substandard accommodation, which will no doubt have an impact on recruitment and retention. Indeed, complaints about service accommodation have rocketed by 20% in the first four months of 2022, compared with 2021. The Government are presiding over record low levels of satisfaction. Why are the Government failing our brave troops, and what will be done urgently to improve service accommodation?

We take these issues seriously, because we recruit the soldier but we retain the family. That is why we are putting record sums of investment into SFA. In the last seven years, we have invested more than £936 million in SFA improvements, and in the coming year we will invest £176 million in SFA. We are putting our money where our mouth is.

To ask the same question as the other one, I call Kevan Jones.