Armed Forces: Accommodation

– in the House of Lords at on 7 February 2007.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Lord Bramall Lord Bramall Crossbench

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What assessment they have made of the quality of British Armed Forces accommodation; and whether any further action is necessary.

Photo of Baroness Crawley Baroness Crawley Government Whip, Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in offering our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Second Lieutenant Bracho-Cooke, who was killed in Iraq on Monday.

In each of the past two financial years, around £500 million has been spent on the maintenance and improvement of service accommodation. In the next decade, we plan to spend a total of more than £5 billion on the defence estate. Even so, we recognise that much still needs to be done to meet the needs of our service men and women and their families.

Photo of Lord Bramall Lord Bramall Crossbench

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that helpful and fairly positive reply, albeit invoking some concern over what has happened hitherto. Does she agree that the root of the problem lay 10 years ago when the Ministry of Defence, under excessive Treasury pressure, forced through a daft plan to sell off and lease back a large part of the defence estate and hand over its upkeep to an impersonal and progressively underfunded agency, which, as a result, manifestly performed less effectively than the chain of command used to do? As this has not been corrected, can the Minister assure the House that when sufficient funds are produced to carry out the improvements and modernisations, which she has more or less promised as necessary, these will be ring-fenced? Otherwise, they will be vulnerable to the inevitable cash squeezes that invariably hit first the administrative tail, and the present lamentable and totally unacceptable state of affairs will merely linger on.

Photo of Baroness Crawley Baroness Crawley Government Whip, Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

My Lords, I say to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, that we are concerned. We ask a great deal of our service men and women. It is right that they should expect the very highest standard of accommodation when they come back from various theatres and, of course, while their families remain in that accommodation. We have spent and are spending more than £1.3 billion on modern, en-suite, single-bed spaces for our service personnel, which is just part of the £5 billion that we plan to spend on service accommodation in the next decade. The noble and gallant Lord talked about the sale to Annington Homes 10 years ago. He is right that that was, in effect, a privatisation measure. It meant that we were tied into a contract that perhaps if we had been in power we might not have made, but we are where we are. We must now make sure that we do our very best by our service personnel.

Photo of Lord Astor of Hever Lord Astor of Hever Deputy Chief Whip, Whips, Shadow Minister, Defence, Shadow Minister, Foreign Affairs, Shadow Minister, International Development

My Lords, from these Benches we, too, send our condolences to the family of the young officer who was killed. To avoid messages to call centres disappearing into a void, would it be possible for service families to have more direct access to the contractors responsible for correcting problems with their accommodation?

Photo of Baroness Crawley Baroness Crawley Government Whip, Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

My Lords, I understand the point that the noble Lord is making. When the housing prime contract, to which I am sure he is referring, was set up last year, it had a very inauspicious start. I think that the helpdesk expected something in the order of 800 to 1,000 calls a day, but it got more than 2,500 and did not cope well, to put it mildly. However, firm action has been taken to improve the quality of the service and there is now considerable improvement in the present system. More than 9,000 calls are made to the helpdesk each week, of which 92 per cent are now answered within 30 seconds and 98 per cent are answered within two minutes.

Photo of Lord Garden Lord Garden Spokesperson in the Lords, Defence

My Lords, Members on these Benches join others in offering our condolences to the family of the second lieutenant so tragically killed on Monday.

The Minister has spoken of £5 billion to be spent over the next decade. That sounds like a lot of money, but many of our soldiers, sailors and airmen will have long since left the services in 10 years' time. How is this work to be accelerated in the light of the assurances given by the Prime Minister in his speech at Plymouth? Lastly, what proportion of substandard accommodation will be upgraded by that £5 billion?

Photo of Baroness Crawley Baroness Crawley Government Whip, Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

My Lords, on 11 January the Prime Minister spoke about introducing the second phase of the modernisation of accommodation for single service men and women. As I explained earlier, we have spent around £1.5 billion during the first phase on modern, en-suite, single-bed accommodation. As we know, people's expectations increase all the time. Whereas sharing a room with four or eight people was considered acceptable 10 or 20 years ago, today young service people want their own rooms and en-suite facilities. The Prime Minister has already indicated that there will be a substantial second phase for that.

Photo of Lord Inge Lord Inge Crossbench

My Lords, after the injection of cash over the two years that the Minister has talked about, what percentage of married quarters and the barrack estate of the three services will still be substandard?

Photo of Baroness Crawley Baroness Crawley Government Whip, Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

My Lords, at present 59 per cent of married quarters meet the highest of the four rates, which as the noble and gallant Lord knows represents a very exacting standard. We hope that the figure will go up to 64 per cent over the next three years, rising into the future.

Photo of Lord Campbell of Alloway Lord Campbell of Alloway Conservative

My Lords, when did the MoD last make an inspection of this accommodation? Was there a report, what did it say, and was it implemented? If so, when?

Photo of Baroness Crawley Baroness Crawley Government Whip, Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

My Lords, new build and upgrades of the order of 12,000 for service families and 20,000 for single living accommodation spaces are continually monitored. However, I will get the details for the noble Lord and let him know.