Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many and what proportion of armed forces accommodation units are empty.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has approximately 47,900 Service Family Accommodation (SFA) properties in the UK. As of 4 May 2023, 9,189 (circa 19%) are void.

Our Service personnel have a mobile lifestyle, and the Department manages between 13,000 and 16,000 planned moves every year. Nevertheless, the MOD recognises that it is holding too many vacant properties. There are several reasons for this: the need to retain void SFA at sites where there is a known, future increase in requirement, but not for several years; the large numbers of void SFA 'behind the wire' which are difficult to dispose of; and ongoing uncertainty over housing requirements, specifically the impact of the Future Accommodation Model which will significantly increase entitlement to SFA.