Asked by: Gemma Doyle (Labour (Co-op) - West Dunbartonshire)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what resources his Department has allocated to local authorities to meet their obligations under the Armed Forces Covenant.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Local authorities share in our national commitment to the Armed Forces Covenant and should meet their obligations from own resources. Though we have set aside £200,000 in 2014/15 from the annual Disabled Facilities Grant funding for local authorities to fund home adaptations (eg ramps, walk-in showers, stairlifts) to meet the needs of disabled ex-Service personnel who wish to live independently in their homes.
We have provided grants (totalling over £1 million) with MOD, to a small number of local authorities in 2011 and 2012 to support the successful integration of retired Gurkha soldiers who wished to settle in the UK.
We have also introduced a number of measures over the last few years as a contribution towards meeting the objectives of the Armed Forces Covenant to ensure that the Armed Forces Community do not face disadvantage, particularly in housing. This includes:
Improved Access to Social Housing
We have introduced protection to ensure that former and current Service personnel are not disadvantaged in accessing social housing because of the disadvantages of military life. We have made sure that seriously injured personnel and former members of the Armed Forces with urgent housing needs are always given high priority for social housing, and that serving personnel and those who have recently been discharged do not lose their qualification rights because of the requirement to move from base to base.
We have also encouraged local authorities to in general give sympathetic consideration to the housing needs of family members of serving or former Service personnel.
Preventing Homelessness
We have introduced measures to provide support for specialist accommodation for veterans, and work with councils to prevent homelessness. We have also introduced initiatives such as Streetlink and No Second Night Out which ensure that when veterans end up sleeping rough they are offered care and support from local services.
Access to home ownership
Members of the Armed Forces have been given priority for Government-funded shared ownership schemes and are able to access Help to Buy: equity loan scheme. The priority status can also be transferred to bereaved spouses or civil partners.
We have also worked with MOD, credit reference agencies and Royal Mail to standardise Forces’ Post Office addresses so personnel are not disadvantaged when applying for mortgages.