Armed Forces: Accommodation

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord has read the excellent speech that the Deputy Prime Minister gave yesterday morning, which I commend to the House. I am sure that many others will want to read it. We are continuing to work within the MoD budget to see whether we can generate additional funds for purposes such as these. We are being deliberately cautious in making forward projections, in contrast to the overoptimistic, even reckless, forward projections of the previous Administration in defence budgeting.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, when the Secretary of State for Defence made announcements in July and September on the welcome procurement of 14 Chinook helicopters, he did not give details of how they were being financed. Maybe we are now beginning to find out, as it now emerges that the housing improvement programme for military personnel, which was put in place by the previous Government, is being halted for three years. When did the Secretary of State publicly announce these specific cuts in the housing improvement programme, and through which channels? Also, what other cuts directly affecting the welfare of Armed Forces personnel are being made that have not been or will not be announced with quite the same vigour as, for example, the Chinook helicopter programme?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I should pay tribute to the previous Administration for their efforts to improve service accommodation. The current situation is that 96 per cent of service accommodation has now been upgraded. We are talking about some 2,000 service family houses and about the projection that, in two years’ time, there will be a pause in further upgrades. I am told by officials that the majority of the 2,000 houses that have not yet been upgraded will either have been disposed of or will have been upgraded by 2013.