MoD: Royal Navy, Army and RAF housing left in "crippled state" as past money available wasted and disappeared

John Healey bemoaned the problems impacting the Ministry of Defence (MoD) estate in today’s Defence Select Committee meeting (November 21). He referenced the shocking conditions in which many armed forces personnel and their families living, from mouldy and dilapidated houses to military sites being substandard.

Bases in the Portsmouth area, including HMS Collingwood, have in the past subject their occupants to maggot infestations and crumbling dorms. Mr Healey told the committee that the previous government allocated £400m of funding in 2023 for the next two financial years, a move which was welcomed at the time.

He said David Williams CB, Permanent Secretary for the MoD - sat alongside him in the meeting - said to him the government body “was “not able to get the full effect of that money”. Mr Healey said he was told by the permanent secretary the funding was “not properly managed by ministers”, adding that the finances were delivered “at short notice”.

“There are serious questions about the profile of that spending,” he added. “This financial year, almost all of the £180m allocated was effectively committed by the end of April, the end of the first month of the second financial year. That means the ability to deal with what we have to expect as an increased demand in the on-set of Winter, that money that should have been there throughout the year is not available.

“For me, there are some big questions to ask of previous ministers about why it was managed in this way, why the spend was profiled in that way and why it has left the large part of this financial year that should have been covered with that fresh investment, is in fact not in place and not available to deal with too often the problems that armed forces personnel families face with their housing.”

Monitoring the defence estate will be part of the upcoming Strategic Defence Review (SDR), with the findings expected to be announced in the Spring of 2025. The MoD is currently undergoing a Defence Estate Optimisation programme, which is looking into how to best utilise assets and accommodation. Committee member Michelle Scrogham, Labour MP for Barrow and Furness, said the chief executive of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation described the state of the estate as “shocking”, and would take at least £2bn to bring up to standard.

The MoD recently received a boost of £2.9bn in the October Budget, allocated for next year. When asked if it was possible to improve the condition of that estate meaningfully without substantial investment, Mr Healey said: “You know when there are pressures, the things that easily get put to the side are those long-term investments that are part of the infrastructure that any organisation needs.

The defence secretary added that he asked the SDR reviewers to look at what enables more effective fighting forces, which are more ready and capable of deterring. “Fundamentally, some of those are the less visible infrastructure support behind them,” he said. “I expect the reviewers to give a strong focus on the state of the infrastructure now, and the critical role it’s going to play in the future. That will pose, inevitably, some big and difficult decisions about where the best direction for investment will lie.”

When asked by Ms Scrogham what would happen if that investment isn’t available, Mr Williams said: “Although we allocated additional capital investment into accommodation of the estate over the last two years, it's a short term investment and we haven’t been able to get the full effect of that money.” The MoD secretary added that for service accommodation in particular, it will be an important part of how the plans outlined in the SDR are finalised.