Strategic Defence Review 2025: Armed forces housing

The government has pledged to spend an additional £1.5 billion on armed forces housing as part of the Strategic Defence Review (SDR), published in June 2025.

The Ministry of Defence will publish a new defence housing strategy later in 2025.

This briefing sets out what the SDR says about housing and accommodation, related measures already announced by the government, and signposts to related Commons Library research briefings.

What is service accommodation?

The armed forces provide subsidised accommodation to personnel and their families. This is considered to be one of the benefits of service and the provision of accommodation reflects the unique nature of service life: the need to move frequently, the lack of choice in location, and the remoteness of some bases. Accommodation varies from single living bed spaces on bases (known as SLA, or single living accommodation) to family housing grouped together on dedicated estates (known as SFA, or service family accommodation).

However, the condition of family accommodation, issues with mould and damp, as well as with the maintenance of and speed of repairs has been a major issue for personnel in recent years and has an impact on retention.

The Strategic Defence Review on housing

The strategic defence review was commissioned by the government shortly after taking office in July 2024. The review was independently led, by former Defence Secretary and former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson. The government published the strategic defence review, with a foreword from the Prime Minister and Defence Secretary, on 2 June 2025. The government has endorsed the review and accepted all 62 its recommendations.

The reviewers criticised “shoddy accommodation” and said enhancing the standard of accommodation is “essential to the morale and retention of service personnel”. The review also called on the MOD to end the uncertainty regarding access to SFA by personnel in long-term, non-married relationships (see section 3.6 below). The review said that “years of squeezing funding for the maintenance of SFA and SLA has contributed to a crisis in recruitment and retention”. The review also criticised current plans for investment, saying that they “do not arrest the overall rate of decline”.

The review called on the government to set out, in the forthcoming Defence Housing Strategy, how it will:

(a) improve the overall standard of accommodation, in alignment with commercial best practice for ensuring high-quality, good-value accommodation

(b) widen eligibility for those in long-term relationships.

The review also recommended the MOD explore options to support Service personnel's aspirations for home ownership.

Context and background

The condition, maintenance and repair of service accommodation has long been an issue for armed forces personnel. Annual surveys of armed forces personnel reflect dissatisfaction with the overall standard of accommodation and responses to, and quality of, maintenance and repair requests.

Personnel have also identified accommodation provision as a factor influencing their intention to leave the armed forces (though a higher number said accommodation was a reason to stay).

The Defence Select Committee, Public Accounts Committee, and the National Audit Office, have scrutinised the condition, maintenance and provision of service accommodation in recent years, most recently in December 2024 by the Defence Committee: Service Accommodation.

What are the government’s plans for housing?

Since taking office in July 2024, the Labour government has announced:

• Plans to publish a new defence housing strategy, incorporating a consumer charter for families.
• The purchase of 36,000 service family homes sold to a private company in 1996 and leased back.
• Pledges to improve the state of accommodation and maintenance issues
• An additional £1.5 billion in accommodation as part of a series of pre-SDR announcements, which it has said means total planned spending on accommodation this Parliament will be £7 billion.

This briefing explains each of these in more detail.

The forthcoming Defence Housing Strategy

The government is currently working on a new defence housing strategy, which it expects to publish later in 2025. This will “deliver a generational renewal of military accommodation” according to Luke Pollard, the Minister for the Armed Forces.

The strategy will be “driven by an independent review team” led by former MP and housing expert Natalie Elphicke Ross OBE. The review team includes the housing specialist for the Army Families Federation. The three service family federations have launched a survey for serving personnel and families to help inform their contributions to the strategy.

The previous government published its defence accommodation strategy in October 2022.

Related Commons Library research briefings

Further information on issues with maintenance and housing under recent successive governments can be found in Commons Library research briefing Armed forces housing: Maintenance issues.

More information on the sale and subsequent buy-back can be found in Commons Library research briefing Armed forces family housing and Annington Homes.

Further information about the previous government's proposals for armed forces housing can be found in Commons Library research briefing Armed forces housing: The new accommodation offer.

Scrutiny of the MOD’s accommodation plans

The National Audit Office (NAO), Public Accounts Select Committee (PAC) and the Defence Select Committee have reported extensively on the provision and maintenance of service accommodation since 2010. Key reports include:

• Defence Committee, Service Accommodation, 11 December 2024
• NAO, Improving Single Living Accommodation, 3 February 2021
• PAC, Military Homes, 21 June 2019
• PAC, Ministry of Defence’s contract with Annington Property Limited, 13 July 2018
• NAO, The Ministry of Defence’s arrangement with Annington Property Limited, 30 January 2018
• NAO, Service Family Accommodation update (memorandum to the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts), January 2017
• PAC, Service Family Accommodation, 13 July 2016
• NAO, Service Family Accommodation (House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts), June 2016
• Defence Committee, The Armed Forces Covenant in action? Part 2: Accommodation, 26 June 2012