Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

6. What the budget is for the maintenance of service accommodation for financial year 2024-25.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)]

The Defence Infrastructure Organisation’s accommodation budget has not yet been finalised for the financial year 2024-25. The Government continue to invest significant sums to improve the quality of UK service family accommodation. The spend for 2023-24 on SFA maintenance and improvement was £384 million. An additional £400 million of funding over financial years 2023-24 and 2024-25 was announced as part of the defence Command Paper refresh last July.

[Helen Morgan]

The new head of infrastructure at the DIO, Commodore Leah Griffin, has written in her monthly newsletter to military families that the financial situation is “more challenging than ever”, and only urgent repairs will be considered. We can see that on the ground in my constituency. A service person’s partner who has had abdominal surgery has been unable to climb in and out of their bath to have a shower, and has been refused any kind of modification to assist them. That kind of financial challenge has a real impact on servicemen and women’s lives. Could the Minister look at the problem, and commit to ensuring a decent standard of accommodation for those people who put their life on the line for us?

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Lady is consistent in raising accommodation issues. As ever, if she has a specific case, she is more than welcome to write to me about it, if she has not already done so. On funding, I gently remind her that we committed an additional £400 million, and because of our commitment to 2.5%, we can confirm that we are able to put another £4 billion into SFA over the next 10 years—a significant investment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

Absolutely. I join my hon. Friend in congratulating them both.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

T4. The service family accommodation at Clive barracks in my constituency is concerning. A family who have severe health problems are living in a mouldy house. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation does not want to spend the money on fixing those problems; it wants to move them into a different house for the second time in two years. What are the Minister’s commitments on upgrading and maintaining the housing stock, particularly on sites that are earmarked for closure, such as Clive barracks?

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Lady is welcome to write to me about that specific case. I pay tribute to her because she consistently raises such accommodation issues—we had an exchange about them in Westminster Hall. She mentions DIO money and, as I said in that exchange, the key is investment. We have doubled the budget for maintenance and upgrades this year as part of the extra £400 million that we are putting in. That is why we can address the damp and mould in so many properties. I am happy to look at the specifics of the case she mentions.

Service Accommodation

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Angela. I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Alistair Strathern) not only on his election, but on his first Westminster Hall debate. This is a really important topic and he has outlined the issues in an enormous amount of detail and very eloquently, and we are all grateful to him for that.

I have been campaigning on the issue of military accommodation since this time last year. North Shropshire is proud to be home to RAF Shawbury and the Clive barracks at Tern Hill. It came to light last year that there were two issues, which I will deal with in turn. The first is around the service maintenance contract—the way in which problems reported by families and individuals living in the accommodation are dealt with. The second is about the overall quality of the stock and how that can be addressed, because I think I am right in saying that we are struggling to maintain adequately a poor and deteriorating stock of housing.

I will start with the service maintenance contract. This time last year, it became evident that there was a huge problem with the recently renegotiated and reimplemented service maintenance contract. Initially, when a family had a problem with their accommodation, they contacted a single contractor—I think at the time that was Amey—which was responsible for handling that call and sending out a contractor to fix the problem, whether that was crows falling down the chimney, a broken boiler or whatever the problem might have been.

The renegotiated contract introduced two steps into that process. First, the service family contracted a company called Pinnacle, which then handed off that work to either Amey, in my area, or—I am afraid that, off the top of my head, I do not recall the other company that was involved in other parts of the country. Clearly, when data has to be handed off between two companies, it introduces a level of risk. Although there is no reason why that should not be done, it caused problems in that instance.

I thank the former Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who dealt with all our queries quickly and effectively. However, it was symptomatic of how badly the contract was operating that we had to hand off hundreds of pieces of casework directly to the Minister to get them resolved.

To give hon. Members some examples, we had families without hot water for weeks on end and broken pipes that were not dealt with. I mentioned crows falling down the chimney, because that was one of the instances that we dealt with, as well a number of cases of severe damp and mould and gas certificates not being completed on time. There are a number of issues around the maintenance of the housing.

We have not had a similar cold snap this year, so we have not had the same types of issues that we saw this time last year with frozen pipes, broken boilers and mould, but I am interested to hear from the Minister how the contract is performing and whether the remediation that we were promised over the summer has taken place. The compensation bill to the families involved was huge, and I wonder whether he can enlighten us on how much having an inefficient contract in place cost the taxpayer.

On top of the maintenance issues, there are all the empty properties around and about and the way in which they are not maintained once they are empty. As an add-on to the problem with the service contract, we had empty properties at Shawbury where the pipes froze, and there was a burst pipe. No one there reported that because no one was living there, and the person next door, who reported it, did not have the right authority to get a contractor out. There are issues with collapsed ceilings and a general worsening of the housing stock, which is already in short supply.

It is really important to think about service families, their peripatetic lives, and the fact that they may not have a community around them, unless they are living in a service family community. When housing stock falls into disrepair and their alternative is to rent in the private rented sector, not only might that be inconvenient due to the new accommodation’s distance from their location, but they will no longer be in that community of people who experience the same challenges in lifestyle. Service family accommodation is really important not just in terms of location and its convenience for the base, but for those families to be part of a community that understands what they go through daily.

Well before our time, in 1996, the Government sold military housing stock of 57,400 homes to Annington Homes. That contract did not cover maintenance, so the Government remain responsible for maintaining that housing. I believe that costs the taxpayer about £180 million a year in rent and £140 million a year in maintenance and upgrades. The National Audit Office has concluded that that deal was really poor value. We cannot revisit what happened in 1996, but I would be grateful if the Minister outlined what steps the Government are taking to improve that situation. We have read speculation in the press that they might be considering buying back some of those houses. Will he give us a general update on how that situation might be improved?

I also want to talk about maintenance issues—perhaps not the urgent ones that caused us so many difficulties this time last year, but the ongoing issues of damp, mould and generally poor-quality housing. The hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire gave some statistics showing how that has worsened over the course of the year. Earlier this year, the Government committed to deal with 60% of the properties that had damp and mould, but that begs the question: what about the other 40%? This is genuinely serious, because families are reporting health concerns as a result of living in mouldy properties. A constituent contacted me recently from Clive Barracks at Ternhill to say that their health has been worsening, but they do not seem to be able to meet the threshold to get what must be severe mould in their property dealt with. That is not acceptable.

We have talked a little bit about families, but obviously there are servicemen and women who go off on tours of duty and come back to service single accommodation. I raised a question about Ternhill at oral questions a couple of weeks ago. A constituent had reported rat-infested, crowded accommodation that was mouldy, as well as kit becoming mouldy and unfit for use, and the generally despicable situation there, which is being addressed by temporary accommodation pods popped into the car park. They are an improvement, and we should acknowledge that they are an attempt to resolve an urgent problem, but it is not okay for servicemen and women to be living in a temporary pod in a car park with no privacy, no rest and recuperation area, and just a bed and a bathroom. Will the Minister give us an update on that as well?

I echo the comments made by the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire. Servicemen and women make a huge sacrifice for us. They are prepared to put their lives on the line. They often have to move their families around to an extent that many people would not feel comfortable with. We have enormous respect for them, regardless of our background or political leaning. A warm and safe home to return to at the end of the day is the minimum that they should expect. It is not acceptable for us to stand here asking, “Well, can we fix the mould in the hundreds of affected properties?” We need a plan to resolve the issue not just of the maintenance contract but of the genuinely poor-quality stock that we expect people to live in. I will be grateful if the Minister updates us today on what that plan is and how quickly it will be executed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Foord]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for that clarification. As a member of the Defence Committee, he will be much closer to this matter than I am. What he says has not stopped us as constituency MPs from receiving correspondence on the subject. I received a letter in October from a regimental sergeant major—a warrant officer, first class, who has had a very long career in the armed forces. He is frankly at the end of their career—a top-of-the-tree, very senior soldier. He wrote on behalf of his son, who is serving and clearly did not feel able to write directly. The RSM writes:

“Briefly my son, who was on exercise in Germany at the time, had left his wife and two sons (aged 5 and 3 months at the time) at home presuming they would be safe. Unfortunately, one evening my daughter-in-law heard a noise from upstairs and went to investigate. Imagine her shock and horror to find an adult rat in the baby’s cot!”

There is a series of letters about what this former senior soldier regards as having developed over the past 15 or 20 years. He talks about the substantial subcontracting that goes on. While VIVO was perhaps initially responsible, it subcontracted to Pinnacle, and then when the rodent infestation was being dealt with, there was a further subcontracting to Vergo Pest Management. That pest management company sought to deal with the rats in that one house, but failed to notice that the entire street was infested. He says that Nos. 1, 4, 5, 6, 12, 14 and 15 were all suffering from rat infestations.

It is plain to me that some of the companies responsible for this issue these days have noticed that it is clearly something they are under the cosh for. Indeed, many of us will have had an email from a lobbyist from Amey earlier today to say that it

“recognised the challenges that families faced with their accommodation during the mobilisation period of the new contract”.

I resent the defensive language used by some of these companies. When it mentions the “mobilisation” of the new contract, it is hiding behind language that the armed forces tend to use, and it is obfuscation.

[Helen Morgan]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. A mobilisation period under a contract is typically six to nine months. To my knowledge, it has been 18 months since that contract was implemented. We should not still be experiencing problems with it. That is why it is so important that we get clarification on whether steps are being taken to improve performance under it.

[Richard Foord]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that excuses to do with a contract handover period are hard to bear in any case, but certainly when such a great length of time has elapsed.

To bring all that to a conclusion, we need to step back from the detail and ask what this means. The Army is being shrunk to just 73,000 regular soldiers. That is a substantial drop from 84,000 even a year ago, and certainly a large drop from 120,000 when I was serving. Partly, that is due to a failure to retain excellent people. Clearly, the armed forces continue to retain some truly excellent people, but some great people are being lost to the service because of experiences such as those I have described. In the armed forces continuous attitude survey this year, just 34% of service personnel said they felt valued. If we do not realise that service is not just about the service person, but the experience of their wider family, we will continue to have these sorts of problems.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge]

I was referring specifically to the constituency of the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire, and I will write to him with the full details, as I said.

I turn to other colleagues’ contributions. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) referred to a discrepancy. To be completely frank, I was not aware of that so I implore him to write to me with the full details. He illustrated how important this issue is in every part of the Union, so I pay tribute to him for his contribution—and he was not called last, which was a great benefit to today’s debate.

I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), who has raised this issue with me previously in oral questions and has been a doughty campaigner on it. I know she has had some significant issues in Clive, for example. On the current position, the figures on damp and mould represents 62% of the total outstanding that we believe need treatment, and 1,360 have been completed to date. She also spoke about the impact on health. I understand the importance of that, which is why we were so determined to get extra money in and why I announced the winter plan showing how damp and mould packages will be implemented for individual properties.

[Helen Morgan]

On the point about bases that is to be closed, Clive barracks is due to be closed in 2029. Is there is a risk that, because it has a finite lifespan, we are not putting in the investment we need and that we are accepting poor-quality accommodation for what is still a good number of years? What is the Minister’s plan to address that?

[James Cartlidge]

That is a fair question. I was talking about the minimum standards that we require, which apply to about 96% of our estate. To reassure the hon. Lady, they apply irrespective of whether the accommodation is not planned for disposal or otherwise.

The hon. Lady also asked about Annington. She will be aware that it has been subject to court action recently and therefore, although she made an excellent point, I am very restricted in what I can say publicly. Certainly, it is an issue to keep an eye on.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton for his service in the Adjutant General’s Corps. He made a very good point about contracts, which of course are important. We should be wary of assuming that another arrangement would be necessarily cheaper or more efficient, but there is no doubt that there were major issues in the initial transition. We have now seen an improvement on some key performance indicators, but where performance has fallen short, we have, where appropriate, withheld profit.

The hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) spoke about engagement with armed forces personnel. All I can say is that as Minister for Defence Procurement, I am responsible for the estate, and when I have been out visiting the estate I generally find that there is a way of having regular engagement on the condition of accommodation. I saw that recently when I visited Odiham with my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena). That meant a great deal to the service personnel that we met, so regular engagement does happen in respect of accommodation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of service accommodation for armed forces personnel.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

8. What steps he is taking to improve service accommodation for armed forces personnel.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)]

Currently, 96.5% of the service family accommodation meets or exceeds the Government’s decent homes standard; only those properties should be allocated to service families. The Government continue to invest significant sums to improve the quality of UK service family accommodation. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation received an investment of £400 million over this financial year and the next as part of the defence Command Paper refresh, meaning that the forecast £380.2 million for this year is more than double last year’s investment in maintenance and improvements.

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman asks an excellent question. We are aware that what happened last winter was not good enough. Too many homes were affected, particularly by damp and mould. That is why we have prioritised getting the investment in, and it has more than doubled in the current financial year. I am pleased to confirm to him that last week I set out our winter plan. It shows that 4,000 homes in the defence estate would benefit from significant work on damp and mould, which is about 60% of the total number that require that work.

[Helen Morgan]

A constituent of mine who lives in Clive barracks at Tern Hill in Shropshire has reported that he lives in rat-infested accommodation, sometimes with two to six soldiers living in the same room. As a result, shipping containers have been placed in the grounds—about 40 at the end of August—and kitted out like budget hotel accommodation for those soldiers to live in. Can the Minister provide any reassurance that these servicemen will be provided with somewhere appropriate to live in the near future?

[James Cartlidge]

I am obviously sorry to hear about that case. I would ask the hon. Member to write to me with the details, and I will look into it with the DIO. The key thing is that, wherever we are talking about—whichever specific barracks or base—if we are going to get on with the works, we need the money there, and we have got that. We have put in place the extra £400 million, and as I set out in the winter plan, thousands of forces personnel will now benefit from that work.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge]

I am alarmed to hear that. It is a pleasure to take a question from my right hon. Friend, who is my constituency neighbour; it is not far for me to travel, and I would be delighted to do so.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

T8. I welcome the Minister’s statement last week that 60% of homes with damp and mould will be receiving support, because that has been such a big issue at RAF Shawbury in my constituency. Can he explain what is going to happen to the other 40% of homes that have damp and mould, and will he commit to a minimum standard for service accommodation for military families?

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Lady asks a very good question. To be clear, the figure of 4,000 homes with damp and mould is for this winter: we have put in place £400 million of additional spending. Of course, as we move into next year, we will look at what further work can be undertaken so that we can deal with all the other properties.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

I visited Catterick on Friday and I discussed precisely that matter with senior members of the armed forces based at Catterick. The characterisation that my right hon. Friend uses is not correct. These matters are being considered objectively and carefully, but that work is ongoing.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

14. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation in meeting the needs of injured veterans when adapting service accommodation.

[The Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

The Defence Infrastructure Organisation provides additional needs and disability adaptations to service family accommodation. Those provide changes to SFA to meet a family’s needs, as set out by a suitably qualified healthcare professional. Once the scope of any adaptation has been agreed with all parties, works will be delivered as quickly as possible. That gives service personnel reassurance that their families’ needs can be met wherever they are assigned, regardless of the length and number of postings they have within their service career.

[Helen Morgan]

The Minister will remember that in June I asked about a badly injured veteran in my constituency. He has written confirmation from the former Defence Minister in 2021 that he would receive extensive adaptations to his home. Those adaptations have not happened, and the situation is so serious that Op Courage has instigated safeguarding proceedings against the Ministry of Defence to protect my constituent. In June the Minister requested that I write to him. I did so yet again, but I still have not received a reply. Will the Minister meet me finally to sort this out? In doing so, will he reassure the House that a Conservative Minister’s word is worth the paper it is signed on?

[Dr Murrison]

I think that is a little harsh. I have discussed this matter with the hon. Lady, and I would of course be more than happy to meet her to discuss her constituent’s case further. She will forgive me if I do not share the details with the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

May I place on record our gratitude to Cornwall Council and Falmouth, and all the organisers of the national Armed Forces Day this year—the town laid on an extraordinary event, which was a great tribute to the men and women of the armed forces—as well as all the other local authorities that laid on events up and down the country? Of course I would welcome a bid from Southport; I will also welcome bids from all over the country, and I look forward to this becoming a growing competition to recognise the men and women of our armed forces.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

On 24 October 2021, the former Defence Minister, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin), wrote to my predecessor and confirmed that a badly injured veteran in my constituency would receive adaptations to his home. Delays ensued, and last week I had a meeting with someone from the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, in which he declined to turn his camera on and said that the work had not been signed off by a person with the right authority. Will the Minister confirm whether the former Minister had the authority, and will he honour that commitment?

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Lady is more than welcome to write to me with the details, and I will look into this as soon as possible.

Service Family Accommodation: Maintenance

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

On Thursday, I was delighted to attend an annual reception at RAF Shawbury in my constituency. That important base trains helicopter pilots for all the armed forces, and we are proud to host it in North Shropshire. However, I am less proud—indeed, I am not proud—of some of the accommodation provided for service families there. This Armed Forces Week, I have had to secure an Adjournment debate to raise the unacceptable repair and maintenance and the poor overall state of housing, as it has become increasingly apparent that service families who live both in Shawbury and at the barracks in Tern Hill in my constituency have not always been able to return to safe and warm houses at the end of each day. Worryingly, the situation has worsened since the maintenance contract was restructured and renegotiated in April 2022.

Let me provide the House with some examples. One of my constituents had a roof in need of full repair and a bird cover for the chimney. The repair simply did not happen. My constituent wrote:

“We still get massive crows falling down our chimney, but we have learnt to live with it.”

A second family endured severe damp and mould, and their children suffered ill health as a result. They wrote:

“My children have been ill for months due to damp and mould never being resolved. We’ve never as much as had a call back to arrange a visit... We called yesterday to raise a repair with water pouring out of our pipes outside. It was classed as ‘non urgent’, so no appointment was made. This morning, we have woken up to no running water in our property—none. We cannot flush the toilet. We cannot wash our hands. We cannot access basic human rights... When I called Pinnacle to raise this issue, I was told it’s ‘non urgent’ and they will keep the job open, but with no guarantee anybody will fix it today.”

At the reception on Thursday, I met a serviceman whose family had suffered from damp and mould, no heating in their utility room and blocked guttering. For three years, they had to wash using a bucket because the water pressure was too low to shower. In another case, I was told,

“we were without heating from 5th December 2022 until 6th January 2023, with 2 young children aged 2 years and the other 6 months.”

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady on bringing forward this issue. The fact that 46% of personnel are married or in a civil partnership and 23% are in a long-term established relationship underlines the importance of family in the support network of our service personnel. The standard of accommodation that those families are in is a vital cog in that network. Does the hon. Lady agree that it should be of the highest standard and well maintained, so that the focus of our troops remains on their job and not on a flood in their bathroom at home?

[Helen Morgan]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s points.

Finally, a constituent wrote to me:

“About to go my third night without heating or hot water…. After also having 26 days without running water, I have run out of avenues to pursue with Pinnacle etc and I think I speak for thousands of service families across the UK when I say that this needs to be addressed. Please help!”

When I raised these cases with the former Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), the Defence Infrastructure Organisation and the contractors Pinnacle and Amey, which serve service families in my constituency, I was grateful for their response and their genuine desire to resolve the issues. We had a constructive meeting, and they have looked into each individual case as a matter of priority. However, when the local MP, a Minister of State and senior management in the contractor companies have to become involved in a process to resolve such basic issues, it is clear that the process is broken not only for my constituents but for service families up and down the country.

The situation is entirely unacceptable, especially given that families are paying rent for the unsuitable housing. That is why it was no surprise to read the results of the Ministry of Defence satisfaction survey last week, which showed that the poor standard of housing is taking its toll on our military families. Satisfaction in the overall standard of service accommodation has fallen to 46% in 2023, from 60% in 2014. Satisfaction with requests for maintenance and repair work decreased to a paltry 19% in 2023 from an already low 46% in 2014, while satisfaction with the quality of the work has also fallen to 19% this year, from 40% in 2014. It was also not a surprise to hear that the poor state of housing means many servicemen and women are considering leaving the profession because of the strain on their family life.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the armed forces continuing attitudes survey, which found that one third of spouses said that they would be happier if their partner chose to leave the service. Does she agree with my constituent, retired Colonel Michael Woodcock, who wrote,

“Remaining in the service too often depends on a most hardy spouse”?

[Helen Morgan]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. Community, support and family life are extremely important to servicemen and women, and I will come to that shortly.

It is important to recognise that families cannot resolve the issue simply by moving to private rented accommodation elsewhere in the vicinity of their base, as often it is unaffordable or just unavailable, and outside the military community. As we know, service families often move house every two years or have a parent or family member away from home on a tour of duty for an extended period. The support network of families who understand their circumstances is really important. It is crucial that service family accommodation is suitable.

If the usable stock is decreasing or service families are put off taking a home because of the issues I have described, the vibrancy of the community is badly affected and service life overall becomes less appealing, as the survey results have showed. Empty and dilapidated housing stock often exacerbates the situation, because where there is a shortage, families must stay in substandard homes. There also appears to be a failure of the contract arrangements to deal with empty properties. One constituent reported houses being left empty and unheated, but with the mains water still turned on. In the winter cold snap, the pipes burst, meaning that the ceilings fell in and serious damage occurred.

Other houses on the estate have had insulation fitted to roofs with unrepaired holes in them, meaning that when water ingress occurs, it causes even more damage. The houses will now cost thousands to repair to an acceptable standard and the families affected will be owed compensation. It is a truly false economy to have allowed that to occur. It is wastes taxpayers’ money and reduces the options for service families who want to live near their base and their community.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a degree of hypocrisy in the fact that we celebrate brave servicemen as our heroes because they put their lives on the line for the security of our nation, yet we cannot guarantee them the most basic support?

[Helen Morgan]

I agree with my hon. Friend wholeheartedly.

My understanding is that the current maintenance contract allows just two weeks after a family leaves a house to carry out any required upgrade work, including any repairs but also big-ticket works such as retrofitting insulation and replacing kitchens and bathrooms. Clearly, two weeks is not long enough if a significant amount of work is required. That leads to incomplete or poor-quality work, which costs more to fix in the future and causes disruption to the family living there.

The overall feedback from my constituents—there has been a lot of it—is that the response to requests for repair and the management of empty houses have deteriorated since the contract was restructured last April, and that while the coming of spring and summer has improved living conditions in the short term, there remain significant concerns about the operation of the process. There appear to be too many hand-offs between, in the case of my constituents, the contractors Pinnacle and Amey. I note that in response to an urgent question in December last year, the former Minister acknowledged that there were IT issues. That rings true with the experiences that have been related to me, in which requests have either not been logged in the first place or have gone missing in the hand-off between the two companies.

Anyone who works in a business knows that IT issues in a contract restructuring of this scale are inevitable, but the Minister suggested that they were unresolved in December 2022, a full nine months after the restructured contracts went live. Has there been any further improvement to date? I have a constituent still reporting little progress on a leaking roof and radiators. The roof was fixed in five days, but the scaffolding remained up for five weeks at goodness knows what unnecessary cost to the taxpayer and the radiators still leak. There is damp and mould, and they have not been given the results of a damp survey that was apparently carried out in December last year.

I hope I have illustrated the chaotic and broken process of reporting an issue and getting it fixed under the newly restructured contract, the shocking state of dilapidation of some empty homes that could otherwise be used for housing our service families, the impact on the service family community, and the unacceptable waste of taxpayers’ money. This is the price of a failing process. We have spent much time in this Chamber rightly debating, and indeed agreeing on, the need for social housing to be of a decent standard, and for tenants to have the right to demand a decent standard, both in the context of the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill as it passed through Parliament and in demanding an end to the system that led to the shocking death of Awaab Ishak.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on setting out the issues in her excellent speech. Labour launched our “Homes Fit for Heroes” campaign a few months ago to focus attention on this scandal and my Front-Bench colleagues have said that, if elected, we will make addressing it a priority. As she said, we cannot carry on with leaky roofs, broken boilers and damp; we must make this a priority. Does she agree that the Government could have done a lot of work already to improve things for the services?

[Helen Morgan]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I broadly agree with her.

We need to accept that our service families have the same right to decent housing as everyone else in this country. When they report a problem, they should expect a response. I do not need to remind anyone that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) pointed out, servicemen and women are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for us. We should at least ensure that they can have a hot shower and a mould-free home in a supportive community. I am sure the Minister will agree with that point, so I would like to conclude by asking him to respond to some questions about the functioning of the contract as it currently stands.

Will the Minister update the House on the current situation regarding outstanding calls and issues raised? How confident is he that all the data on those calls has been captured, given the issues I have recounted of problems not being recorded or being lost in the hand-off between the two companies? What is the long-term plan to deal with the issue of empty properties falling into disrepair and out of use altogether? Does the Minister believe that the current contract structure is commercially viable in the long term, given the unanticipated additional resource that the contractors have had to commit to resolving backlogs and dealing with the additional hand-offs within the process? Is there a deadline by which he expects these contracts to be operating on an acceptable “business as usual” basis? Has he considered restructuring and renegotiating the contracts, given the obvious operational difficulties that have been experienced? Finally, is he able to quantify the additional cost to taxpayers of dealing with the problems that have occurred over the last year?

I am grateful to the Minister for his time at this late hour on a Monday, and to Mr Speaker for granting a debate on an issue that I know is of the utmost concern both to the service families currently based in North Shropshire and to those elsewhere in the UK. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Before I call the Minister, I should remind him that as the debate started before 10 pm, we will go through the interesting procedure of interrupting his speech at 10 pm so that the Whip can move the motion for the Adjournment one more time.

Ukraine Update

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks and pay tribute to his constituents, who have been providing gearboxes for the Challenger 2 tanks. He is absolutely right to say that the support is not just military. Indeed, more than £1 billion of humanitarian support has been provided by the British Government, and there are those from North Norfolk and elsewhere who have been doing a huge amount besides—blankets are important, food is important, generators are important. I am proud that this country has provided tens of thousands of sets of winter clothing for Ukrainian troops. That means that General Winter—as some have referred to winter and the impact that it can have on conflicts in that part of the world—should be on the side of the Ukrainians.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement. The Liberal Democrats join the Government and other Opposition parties in opposing this dreadful invasion. The Minister mentioned the Wagner Group, which we know is an agent of Putin that is responsible for egregious human rights abuses and atrocities not just in Ukraine, but around the world, in Mali, Sudan and Syria. Will the Minister commit to proscribing the military units and mercenary groups that are carrying out those atrocities in Ukraine and elsewhere?

[Alex Chalk]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and her support. Her point about the Wagner Group is one that is under active consideration by the Government as we speak.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that question. I am acutely aware of the position of the pre-2015 war widows. The Treasury is absolutely against retrospection, and that has been the case over consecutive Governments. Ex gratia payments, however, are a different matter. I cannot give any commitments, but I can tell my right hon. Friend that the matter is under active consideration.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

On Friday, I had the honour of visiting the brand-new specialist veterans orthopaedic centre at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital near Oswestry. It is going to be a world-class facility built to provide NHS care for veterans across the UK, as well as working with military charities to provide other support. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating staff there on their achievement and agree to consider extending such centres across the UK?

[Mr Wallace]

The marrying-up over the years between the MOD, the health service and the charities has gone from strength to strength. The example that the hon. Lady has used is something that we should embrace and do more of.