Renters’ Rights Bill

Debate between Gideon Amos and Danny Beales

Monday 8th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos]

Any opportunity to give our service people decent homes, beginning with England, should be taken. I am surprised that the Minister has not grasped it with both hands. The Minister and the Government are in the position, with a large majority, to legislate for this in whichever way they choose, but it needs to be on the face of the legislation. That is what our military deserve. Warm words about things improving are not enough; we have heard them before. My hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire gained a categoric assurance from the last Government’s Housing Minister at the Dispatch Box that that Government would legislate. They did not.

[Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman says nothing has changed, yet again, but does he not welcome—as I do, as a constituency MP with a significant amount of military housing around RAF Northolt—the significant £1 billion-plus investment into military housing and the insourcing back into public ownership of thousands of MOD homes, after the previous Government’s botched privatisation deal, which cost taxpayers huge amounts of public money?

[Gideon Amos]

I welcome the moves to which the hon. Gentleman refers, including the insourcing, but the responsibility for determining whether the homes meet the “decent homes plus” standard is down to contractors, who have a commercial interest in reporting that. The difference with the decent homes standard generally is that it is subject to independent inspection. That is a crucial difference. Surely there should be a robust and accountable regime set out in primary legislation to ensure that that investment continues and those standards are reached. That is the least that our service people should be able to expect.

As I was saying, my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire was given categoric assurances that the Government would legislate in this regard, but they did not and neither have this Government. Lord Stirrup, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, reminded the Lords, speaking from experience, that this is not a new problem but one that Governments had failed to tackle for decades. He said:

“For decades now, I have seen at close hand the deficiencies in service families’ accommodation…For years, I have listened to successive Governments undertake to get to grips with the issue. For decades, I have seen them fail to do so…So why should I, or anybody who comes after me, put any faith in any Government’s promises that are not backed up by enforceable measures?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 July 2025; Vol. 847, c. 1759.]

That is the nub of the issue. Service families have heard promises for decades. Now, surely, is the time for action. Our military deserve the gold standard, and that means they deserve legislative provision for decent homes, however the Government wish to do it.