Service Family Accommodation

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She has experienced, through her own mailbag, the impact on the families of service personnel. I have experienced that myself in Cheltenham. The answer is that we are absolutely clear that that needs to improve. She asks about timelines. From 23 January, if things have not improved, potential financial consequences can follow. Act 1, scene 1 is for Pinnacle to make progress now. I am talking about right now—indeed, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) was talking about today. I am receiving daily dashboards about what the situation is and what proportion has been left without heating for more than 24 hours and so on, and I have made it clear that I want to see improvements every single day.

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

When service personnel in service families accommodation are away, their spouse has to take charge of property maintenance. I recall my wife spending hours on the phone to the then contractor, Modern Housing Solutions, waiting in the queue on the phone in the hope that, eventually, the circuitous jingle would come to an end and she would be met with a human voice. Last year, 16,250 armed forces personnel left the armed forces—the largest number since 2016. What account did the Government take of retention of service personnel when they awarded the contract to Pinnacle Group in April?

[Alex Chalk]

Issues of recruitment and retention are, of course, broad-based and multifactorial. All sorts of issues go into determining levels of recruitment and retention, but the hon. Gentleman raises a fair point. I would hope and expect that, at the time of entering into the contract, it was made crystal clear that Pinnacle had to deliver on it, because otherwise the implications for service families—not just the individual serviceman or woman, but their families—would be deeply profound. It has not measured up to that, and I think we need to establish in very short order what it said, when it said it and whether it was being entirely up front about what it could deliver.