Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Alan Strickland and Danny Kruger

Report stage
Monday 22nd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alan Strickland (Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor) (Lab)]

It is apt that the House meets during Armed Forces Week to discuss this important Bill. I strongly welcome it, and commend Ministers past and present for using its passage to not just renew service law, which Parliament is required to do every five years, as hon. Members have said, but genuinely drive wider improvements for the benefits of service personnel and our national defence. My speech focuses on housing elements of the Bill, around which there remains some debate, and on which there are a number of amendments.

Before I come to the amendments, there are two reasons why the new approach to defence accommodation is incredibly important. The first is a point of principle: there can be no greater calling in the public service of our nation that donning uniform to defend our fellow citizens. I am proud to be a County Durham MP, and the county has one of the highest proportions of serving and veteran armed forces personnel in the country. Those from our communities who are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to defend our way of life deserve the best support. That includes housing. Providing good-quality service homes should be non-negotiable. It should be a source of shame that, under the last Government, the housing element of the duty we owe our personnel fell far short of what they rightly deserve.

My second point is pragmatic. The historic failures on service housing have caused operational problems for those tasked with defending our nation. The state of some military housing hampers the day-to-day ability of our armed forces to compete in a competitive labour market. That matters; a Defence Committee report in 2023 highlighted that housing and other issues were making it difficult for our armed forces to recruit and retain talented people. Because of the fantastic investment that our armed forces make in defence personnel—I have seen that for myself on bases—whether in fighting troops, engineers, or others, we thankfully make our personnel highly competitive in the modern labour market, so there is rightly a draw on them. This issue absolutely must be addressed if we are serious about improving our defence, and I commend Ministers for their determination to address it.

New clause 12 calls for a report on the potential for establishing a forces housing association. I respect the intent of this proposal entirely, but I think we might be in danger of putting form before function here. I say that as somebody who, before my election, worked for 14 years in housing—for seven years as a council housing cabinet member, building council housing, overseeing an arm’s length management organisation and working with major developers to secure billions of pounds of investment in Tottenham after the riots, and then for seven years as the director of a large housing association, again delivering complex projects—so I have seen housing from many angles, and many providers.

Working in the housing sector, I have seen that what matters fundamentally is the quality of leadership and culture, not necessarily the detail of the structures. The emphasis should therefore be on strong, clear and transparent leadership. It can be found at the heart of the best social and public housing providers. That might sound like an obvious point, but in the rapidly changing world of housing, it takes a particular type of leader to deliver on projects involving large numbers of residents, stakeholders and contractors, because it is hard.

I was therefore pleased to hear the commitments made, in the oral evidence sessions of the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill, to the Defence Housing Service having an independent chair, non-executive directors and a family representative. That mix of strong, robust leadership is exactly right, and is in accordance with good practice in the wider housing sector. I hope that Ministers will make the most of this structure by recognising that there is a wealth of leadership experience and skill in council housing departments, big housing associations and other social housing providers—people who have dedicated their careers to this. They could lend their expertise to the Defence Housing Service. I hope that Ministers will proactively tap into that pool of talent across the country to ensure that the new organisation works at every level.

Amendment 8 seeks to introduce an objective of improving the satisfaction of service personnel. Having worked in the housing sector for 14 years, I would expect that the satisfaction of residents or customers would be a core part of everything that the Defence Housing Service did, and one of the main issues for discussion by the board and the leadership team. Whether or not Parliament sets these as objectives slightly misses the point; the point is that they should be the absolute bread and butter of that organisation, day to day. I am sure that Ministers will talk to the board and the leadership of that organisation about that.

On the point about organisational culture, having worked in the sector, I have seen complex housing organisations in which there is a culture of delivery, real care for residents and a determination to fix things, which can often be complex, and a culture of getting things done. Equally, I have seen housing providers in which the opposite is true—where things are not done, things take a long time, residents are seen as a nuisance and complaints are seen as a pain, rather than as an object for learning. Again, the key lesson for Ministers is to work with the new organisation to drive the culture; I know that having served in uniform, Ministers will be used to driving strong culture through organisations. That is the key issue here.

In my previous career, I saw that the social housing sector has become more complex. Organisations increasingly deliver maintenance, long-term asset management, investment programmes and new home building, and deal with the construction issues with homes for rent and sale—the complex mix of things we will be tasking the Defence Housing Service with doing. Some organisations were just overwhelmed. Strong leadership and strong culture are needed, and there is clear evidence that with those, we can make this work.

There is something else that we need to defend against in the Defence Housing Service—and I know that Ministers are cognisant of this. In council housing departments and charitable housing associations, the pressure to deliver quickly has often led to convoluted chains of accountability, involving layer upon layer of contractors and subcontractors. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Alex Baker) made about accountability is important. We have seen in many of the reports following the terrible Grenfell tragedy that there were layers and layers of organisations involved, without any clear accountability, and that caused some of the appalling problems there. There should be an emphasis on accountability in the Defence Housing Service.

Ministers and the board will find really good advice in many reports from the Housing Ombudsman and the Regulator of Social Housing’s in-depth assessments; there is lots of evidence from Government about how to make complex housing organisations work well. We know that this was one of the main issues that came with the privatised model of service housing that was introduced by the previous Conservative Government, and it is why I strongly support the changes being made.

On visits through the armed forces parliamentary scheme, we have met lots of service personnel who shared stories of outsourced housing contractors being difficult to contact, unresponsive and acting slowly; equally, we heard from senior and base commanders who were keen to ensure the best accommodation for their people, but who struggled to hold private providers to account and have lacked direct lines of accountability. I know that Ministers will be tackling those issues, and that might be a better way of addressing them than through the amendments that have been tabled.

Amendment 11 seeks to bring the Defence Housing Service’s budget into the defence investment plan. The key point here is not which budget the money technically sits in, but whether the housing commitment will be properly resourced; I know that Ministers are committed to ensuring that it is. The £9 billion commitment from Government is really powerful; work has already started on repairing military homes. The debate about whether that £9 billion sits in the DIP or elsewhere, again, slightly misses the point; the point is whether this Government are committed to investing and providing resource to get this fixed and sorted, and the answer is yes. I am sure that will change and develop as time goes on, as the organisation is fully set up and the board takes real control of that. That, I think, is our key priority.

In summary, strong leadership, an accountable, can-do culture that gets stuff done and proper resourcing are the key ingredients of to delivering for our servicemen and women in uniform, and I am confident that ministerial colleagues will drive that forward. A number of Members from across the House from the ’24 intake who came to the House with significant experience of working for complex housing organisations would be very happy to support Ministers on the road ahead.

Lastly, while I will not go into these elements in detail, I want to say how important the parts of the Bill that deal with the covenant are. Expanding the armed forces covenant duty to central Government Departments is absolutely the right thing to do if we are to stay true to the duty that we owe our service people. It is entirely right that it applies to all layers of Government. On Friday, I met a constituent at my surgery—a veteran—who was raising concerns about his access to services from the NHS and other parts of the local public sector. He was struggling to get the support that he needed. Members know from our casework that support for our veterans is not always consistent, and that must improve across the public sector. That is why enshrining the covenant in law, through this Bill, is such an important step. Those serving our nation in uniform, those who have served and their families deserve the very best support. That is why I am proud to support this Bill.

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Reform)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland).

I start by stating, on behalf of my party, our support for this Bill and its important provisions, not simply because it extends the legal basis of our armed forces, but because of the very important new provisions that it introduces. We very much support the extension, which the hon. Gentleman just mentioned, of the armed forces covenant to more policy areas. We also support the expansion of recall for reservists; it would be good if we could actually recruit more reservists, full stop, but it is very welcome that we will be able to recall more of them. Most of all, I support the principle of better housing for veterans and forces families. I think I represent more forces families and veterans than any other MP; the area that I represent covers part of Salisbury plain, Tidworth, Bulford and Larkhill, and despite what it says outside Aldershot, we are the true home of the British Army—I hope that the hon. Member for Aldershot (Alex Baker) will allow me to make that claim—and I am very keen to ensure that our forces and their families are properly accommodated.

I recognise the point made by the hon. Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor that what really matters is the leadership of housing organisations. However, I want to express my concern about a measure that will create a new quango responsible for forces families. I instead support the official Opposition proposal that we create a dedicated housing association for that purpose.

I will turn now to the amendments tabled by other Members and parties that we support. It is important that the budget for the new housing organisation is properly reflected in the defence investment plan, when it comes out. I would also very much like a commitment from the Government that we will see in due course the effect of this long, unacceptable and unaccountable delay to the defence investment plan. What effect will the delay have on our procurement and military readiness?