Armed Forces: Accommodation Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Armed Forces: Accommodation

Lord Touhig Excerpts
Thursday 15th September 2011

(13 years, 2 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Touhig Portrait Lord Touhig
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My Lords, the defence estate represents 1 per cent of the land mass of Britain and is worth over £15 billion. Have the Government looked at disposing of some defence estate assets, a policy that I pursued when I was a Defence Minister? There is a lot of money there that could be used to improve the quality of accommodation for our service men and women.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Portrait Lord Wallace of Saltaire
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I assure the noble Lord that the Government have looked at that, although I suspect that we will not follow the example of the Icelandic Government in considering selling large chunks of the defence estate to Chinese investors.