“Living in our Shoes” Report

5. If he will continue to issue online updates on the implementation of accepted recommendations from the “Living in our Shoes” report, published on 30 June 2020.

Families are an integral part of the armed forces community. Our commitment to them remains strong and is reinforced by the Haythornthwaite review, the defence Command Paper refresh, the families strategy, which was published in January 2022, and my hon. Friend’s excellent “Living in our Shoes” framework for delivering more family-sympathetic policies.

The families of armed forces personnel have to put up with more separation, relocation and danger to their loved ones than the families of any other public servants, and they often feel slightly disenfranchised. They might not know their Member of Parliament, and they might fear to approach them because of the impact it might have on their spouse or partner’s career. Does my right hon. Friend agree it is incredibly important that the public can see the follow-through on the 86 recommendations that the Ministry of Defence accepted in full and on the 20 recommendations that it accepted in part?

My hon. Friend will be interested to hear that I have a slightly different number. My number is that 106 of his report’s 110 recommendations have been accepted. Regardless of the exact figure, I entirely agree on the importance of making sure that armed forces families live in decent accommodation. When we ask armed forces personnel to fight abroad, they should live in good accommodation when they come home.

My hon. Friend is familiar with the steering group, which includes families, federations and the authors of his excellent report, and he will be pleased to hear that it meets again on 28 February.