New body to run military housing after MoD ‘failed’ personnel, Healey says

A new body is needed to run military housing because the Ministry of Defence has previously “failed” servicemen and women, Defence Secretary John Healey said.

The Defence Housing Service will take over management of service accommodation after years of complaints about poor quality homes.

During a visit to newly improved accommodation in Uxbridge, West London, alongside Al Carns, minister for the armed forces, on Monday, Mr Healey said there has been a “scandal” in forces housing for decades.

He told the PA news agency: “Defence has failed those who serve on their housing.

“We ask extraordinary things of those who serve, we ask them to deploy sometimes at a week’s notice to the other side of the world, we ask them and their families to move every three years, and the very least they deserve is a decent home.

“The very last thing you want our forces to worry about is whether their husband or wife and child back home is living in a damp, cold, leaky home – we’re putting an end to that.”

Mr Carns said: “Over the last 14 years, we’ve failed to put the right resources behind it and manage it effectively.

“That’s why we’re creating this new Defence Housing Service to do it properly.”

It will operate as an arm’s-length public body, with Mr Healey saying the new service would be better value for the taxpayer.

When created, it will be one of the largest publicly owned housing providers in the country.

Earlier in the year, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer pledged to reduce the number of quangos (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations) to improve accountability and cut back on bureaucracy.

Asked if the new body is going against that pledge, Mr Healey replied: “No, it’s creating the standalone specialist service that’s needed and across the piece you’ll see defence continuing to reduce the number of bodies that we’ve got, which we’re already doing.”

The creation of the new body is part of a 10-year defence housing strategy, also launched on Monday, that will see £9 billion invested in service accommodation and 100,000 homes built on surplus MoD land.

The “forces first” approach, announced at Labour’s party conference in September, will see military families given “first dibs” on new homes built on defence land.

It follows a decision earlier in the year to take 36,000 SFA homes back into public ownership, which the MoD said saves the taxpayer £600,000 per day.

The MoD has also promised to carry out an “urgent review” of single living accommodation (SLA), which houses more than half of military personnel.

Mr Healey has described the strategy as “the biggest renewal of armed forces housing in more than 50 years”.

Military accommodation has been heavily criticised in recent years, with a Commons committee last year finding problems with maintenance and historic underinvestment leaving two-thirds of SFA housing “essentially no longer fit for purpose”.

MPs also found around a third of the 133,000 SLA spaces were not fit for purpose.

Complaints include persistent damp and mould problems, long delays for maintenance work, outdated facilities and furniture, and poor communication from those responsible for operating the accommodation.

Poor accommodation has been cited as one reason for the military’s struggle to retain personnel, with 40% of service members saying it had made them more likely to leave the armed forces.

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said: “With retention still one of the most critical issues in defence, it is vital our armed forces families are provided with the best quality accommodation.”

Arguing that the previous Conservative government had decided to buy back the defence estate and create a new Forces Housing Association, he said it “remains to be seen if Labour’s new Defence Housing Service will have the operational independence to perform that role to the same degree”.

Mr Cartlidge added: “We will carefully consider Labour’s proposals but, like all their defence policy papers so far, this is months late and we now need to see real ambition in practice when it comes to overhauling defence accommodation.”