Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Morgan Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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John Healey
The 10 JEF nations, led by the UK—JEF was established by the previous Government—have stepped up their leadership, with support from Members on both sides of the House. JEF is an important part of NATO and allows us to act ahead of unanimity in NATO. From critical infrastructure to exercising in the High North, JEF has led the way and will continue to do so.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
Louise Sandher-Jones
Just last week, we launched the single living accommodation review, which is designed to get at exactly these issues to ensure that our serving personnel have the accommodation they deserve.
Armed Forces Bill
Helen Morgan ExcerptsMonday 26th January 2026
(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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James Cartlidge
From a sedentary position, the Secretary of State says, “Giving it away.” It is very odd when a member of the Labour party thinks that setting up a co-operative is somehow a privatisation.
The body that the Government will create in this Bill to deliver that transformation is the Defence Housing Service. Although we welcome its ambition to improve the supply and quality of defence housing, inevitably we will want to see that its structure means that it is able to deliver as many of the outcomes that we wanted from our own policy as possible.
Specifically, one of the reasons why my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford first proposed an armed forces housing association in 2020 was to give armed forces families proper representations on its board. Will the Defence Housing Service ensure a similar, meaningful voice for service families? Given that a priority for our housing association model was to extend home ownership throughout the ranks, not least because housing associations have access to a wider suite of home ownership products, what role will the Defence Housing Service play in delivering greater home ownership among service families?
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
I know that Members across the House supported Liberal Democrat plans to introduce a decent homes standard for service family accommodation, and I am very grateful to the Government for bringing that in through recent legislation from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. However, single living accommodation is still really poor. Constituents in North Shropshire report rat infestations and being unable to sleep at night. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that single living accommodation also needs to be looked at as a priority?
James Cartlidge
When I was a Minister, the hon. Lady was always raising that point. She has been a passionate defender of her constituents on this matter, and I respect her for that. When we talk about single living accommodation, as opposed to service family accommodation, it is fair to say that there is a different funding structure—it goes through the frontline commands. My own experience is that that can be challenging, as they have their own budget challenges. Hopefully, by taking forward this model we will see clearer lines of finance into housing, but at the end of the day we need to have both SLA and SFA up to a high standard. The hon. Lady is absolutely right.
Let me turn to the Bill’s proposals on drones. We obviously welcome the proposals to give the military greater powers of interception in relation to drones, but we want them to go further. For example, why have the Government not taken the opportunity to put into law measures that provide easier access to testing ranges for our brilliant defence small and medium-sized enterprises? After all, they have delivered some of the best drones used in Ukraine.
Is this not part of the problem? When it comes to procurement, we live in a parallel universe where the Government have delivered—quite rightly, and as we did—drones, munitions and equipment at scale to Ukraine, but at the same time procurement for our armed forces has been almost frozen since the election. There is a reason why the Government’s plans to increase the reserves may not happen for a decade. There is a reason why any defence company will share its immense frustration at the lack of orders coming out of the MOD, whether for drones or for other capabilities. That is because the Government have prioritised a bigger welfare bill over the scale of increase in defence spending that our armed forces require.
When it comes to defence spending, the Government like to wrap themselves in the comfort blanket of arguments about the past, even when they are wrong. At Prime Minister’s questions on two occasions in recent weeks, the Prime Minister has repeatedly misrepresented what Ben Wallace actually said about defence spending. His point was not that defence spending fell under the Conservatives, but that it fell under all Governments following the end of the cold war and the so-called peace dividend. To be partisan about that observation is to hide from the truth that we all have to face up to: that the world has completely changed.
I am incredibly proud of what we did in government to stand by Ukraine before most other nations acted, but, irrespective of what happened before, it must be obvious that we need to spend far more on defence and far more than the Government are planning.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Morgan Excerpts(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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John Healey
I do indeed. That is why I am convening, and will co-chair tomorrow, the latest meeting of the 50-nation-strong Ukraine defence contact group. We will be looking to step up the support that we are able to give Ukraine now to keep it in the fight, alongside the work that we are doing in the coalition of the willing, so that we are ready to help secure the peace in the event of an agreement.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt orthopaedic hospital in my constituency is home to a world-class veterans centre that provides not only excellent orthopaedic care but wraparound support to help veterans to continue their lives in civilian society. Will the Minister come to North Shropshire and meet the people who run the centre, so that she can see for herself how effective this model is?
Louise Sandher-Jones
I thank the hon. Member for highlighting the important work that is being undertaken, and I will of course pay a visit in due course.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Morgan Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Luke Pollard
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If only we had a Scottish Government who were investing in defence skills rather than one who dither on defence. The Scottish Government did not invest in the welding centre in Glasgow; it required a Labour Government in the UK to step in and invest. We are delivering for defence. The Scottish Government are dithering on defence, and they are letting jobs slip out of their hands as a result.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
Louise Sandher-Jones
We will shortly start our single living accommodation review to address exactly those points—the sometimes shocking state of such accommodation and what we can do to support the people who live in it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Morgan Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)
The Defence Infrastructure Organisation’s accommodation budget has not yet been finalised for the financial year 2024-25. The Government continue to invest significant sums to improve the quality of UK service family accommodation. The spend for 2023-24 on SFA maintenance and improvement was £384 million. An additional £400 million of funding over financial years 2023-24 and 2024-25 was announced as part of the defence Command Paper refresh last July.
Helen Morgan
The new head of infrastructure at the DIO, Commodore Leah Griffin, has written in her monthly newsletter to military families that the financial situation is “more challenging than ever”, and only urgent repairs will be considered. We can see that on the ground in my constituency. A service person’s partner who has had abdominal surgery has been unable to climb in and out of their bath to have a shower, and has been refused any kind of modification to assist them. That kind of financial challenge has a real impact on servicemen and women’s lives. Could the Minister look at the problem, and commit to ensuring a decent standard of accommodation for those people who put their life on the line for us?
James Cartlidge
The hon. Lady is consistent in raising accommodation issues. As ever, if she has a specific case, she is more than welcome to write to me about it, if she has not already done so. On funding, I gently remind her that we committed an additional £400 million, and because of our commitment to 2.5%, we can confirm that we are able to put another £4 billion into SFA over the next 10 years—a significant investment.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Morgan Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Dr Murrison
Absolutely. I join my hon. Friend in congratulating them both.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
James Cartlidge
The hon. Lady is welcome to write to me about that specific case. I pay tribute to her because she consistently raises such accommodation issues—we had an exchange about them in Westminster Hall. She mentions DIO money and, as I said in that exchange, the key is investment. We have doubled the budget for maintenance and upgrades this year as part of the extra £400 million that we are putting in. That is why we can address the damp and mould in so many properties. I am happy to look at the specifics of the case she mentions.
Service Accommodation
Helen Morgan Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Angela. I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Alistair Strathern) not only on his election, but on his first Westminster Hall debate. This is a really important topic and he has outlined the issues in an enormous amount of detail and very eloquently, and we are all grateful to him for that.
I have been campaigning on the issue of military accommodation since this time last year. North Shropshire is proud to be home to RAF Shawbury and the Clive barracks at Tern Hill. It came to light last year that there were two issues, which I will deal with in turn. The first is around the service maintenance contract—the way in which problems reported by families and individuals living in the accommodation are dealt with. The second is about the overall quality of the stock and how that can be addressed, because I think I am right in saying that we are struggling to maintain adequately a poor and deteriorating stock of housing.
I will start with the service maintenance contract. This time last year, it became evident that there was a huge problem with the recently renegotiated and reimplemented service maintenance contract. Initially, when a family had a problem with their accommodation, they contacted a single contractor—I think at the time that was Amey—which was responsible for handling that call and sending out a contractor to fix the problem, whether that was crows falling down the chimney, a broken boiler or whatever the problem might have been.
The renegotiated contract introduced two steps into that process. First, the service family contracted a company called Pinnacle, which then handed off that work to either Amey, in my area, or—I am afraid that, off the top of my head, I do not recall the other company that was involved in other parts of the country. Clearly, when data has to be handed off between two companies, it introduces a level of risk. Although there is no reason why that should not be done, it caused problems in that instance.
I thank the former Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who dealt with all our queries quickly and effectively. However, it was symptomatic of how badly the contract was operating that we had to hand off hundreds of pieces of casework directly to the Minister to get them resolved.
To give hon. Members some examples, we had families without hot water for weeks on end and broken pipes that were not dealt with. I mentioned crows falling down the chimney, because that was one of the instances that we dealt with, as well a number of cases of severe damp and mould and gas certificates not being completed on time. There are a number of issues around the maintenance of the housing.
We have not had a similar cold snap this year, so we have not had the same types of issues that we saw this time last year with frozen pipes, broken boilers and mould, but I am interested to hear from the Minister how the contract is performing and whether the remediation that we were promised over the summer has taken place. The compensation bill to the families involved was huge, and I wonder whether he can enlighten us on how much having an inefficient contract in place cost the taxpayer.
On top of the maintenance issues, there are all the empty properties around and about and the way in which they are not maintained once they are empty. As an add-on to the problem with the service contract, we had empty properties at Shawbury where the pipes froze, and there was a burst pipe. No one there reported that because no one was living there, and the person next door, who reported it, did not have the right authority to get a contractor out. There are issues with collapsed ceilings and a general worsening of the housing stock, which is already in short supply.
It is really important to think about service families, their peripatetic lives, and the fact that they may not have a community around them, unless they are living in a service family community. When housing stock falls into disrepair and their alternative is to rent in the private rented sector, not only might that be inconvenient due to the new accommodation’s distance from their location, but they will no longer be in that community of people who experience the same challenges in lifestyle. Service family accommodation is really important not just in terms of location and its convenience for the base, but for those families to be part of a community that understands what they go through daily.
Well before our time, in 1996, the Government sold military housing stock of 57,400 homes to Annington Homes. That contract did not cover maintenance, so the Government remain responsible for maintaining that housing. I believe that costs the taxpayer about £180 million a year in rent and £140 million a year in maintenance and upgrades. The National Audit Office has concluded that that deal was really poor value. We cannot revisit what happened in 1996, but I would be grateful if the Minister outlined what steps the Government are taking to improve that situation. We have read speculation in the press that they might be considering buying back some of those houses. Will he give us a general update on how that situation might be improved?
I also want to talk about maintenance issues—perhaps not the urgent ones that caused us so many difficulties this time last year, but the ongoing issues of damp, mould and generally poor-quality housing. The hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire gave some statistics showing how that has worsened over the course of the year. Earlier this year, the Government committed to deal with 60% of the properties that had damp and mould, but that begs the question: what about the other 40%? This is genuinely serious, because families are reporting health concerns as a result of living in mouldy properties. A constituent contacted me recently from Clive Barracks at Ternhill to say that their health has been worsening, but they do not seem to be able to meet the threshold to get what must be severe mould in their property dealt with. That is not acceptable.
We have talked a little bit about families, but obviously there are servicemen and women who go off on tours of duty and come back to service single accommodation. I raised a question about Ternhill at oral questions a couple of weeks ago. A constituent had reported rat-infested, crowded accommodation that was mouldy, as well as kit becoming mouldy and unfit for use, and the generally despicable situation there, which is being addressed by temporary accommodation pods popped into the car park. They are an improvement, and we should acknowledge that they are an attempt to resolve an urgent problem, but it is not okay for servicemen and women to be living in a temporary pod in a car park with no privacy, no rest and recuperation area, and just a bed and a bathroom. Will the Minister give us an update on that as well?
I echo the comments made by the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire. Servicemen and women make a huge sacrifice for us. They are prepared to put their lives on the line. They often have to move their families around to an extent that many people would not feel comfortable with. We have enormous respect for them, regardless of our background or political leaning. A warm and safe home to return to at the end of the day is the minimum that they should expect. It is not acceptable for us to stand here asking, “Well, can we fix the mould in the hundreds of affected properties?” We need a plan to resolve the issue not just of the maintenance contract but of the genuinely poor-quality stock that we expect people to live in. I will be grateful if the Minister updates us today on what that plan is and how quickly it will be executed.
Richard Foord
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for that clarification. As a member of the Defence Committee, he will be much closer to this matter than I am. What he says has not stopped us as constituency MPs from receiving correspondence on the subject. I received a letter in October from a regimental sergeant major—a warrant officer, first class, who has had a very long career in the armed forces. He is frankly at the end of their career—a top-of-the-tree, very senior soldier. He wrote on behalf of his son, who is serving and clearly did not feel able to write directly. The RSM writes:
“Briefly my son, who was on exercise in Germany at the time, had left his wife and two sons (aged 5 and 3 months at the time) at home presuming they would be safe. Unfortunately, one evening my daughter-in-law heard a noise from upstairs and went to investigate. Imagine her shock and horror to find an adult rat in the baby’s cot!”
There is a series of letters about what this former senior soldier regards as having developed over the past 15 or 20 years. He talks about the substantial subcontracting that goes on. While VIVO was perhaps initially responsible, it subcontracted to Pinnacle, and then when the rodent infestation was being dealt with, there was a further subcontracting to Vergo Pest Management. That pest management company sought to deal with the rats in that one house, but failed to notice that the entire street was infested. He says that Nos. 1, 4, 5, 6, 12, 14 and 15 were all suffering from rat infestations.
It is plain to me that some of the companies responsible for this issue these days have noticed that it is clearly something they are under the cosh for. Indeed, many of us will have had an email from a lobbyist from Amey earlier today to say that it
“recognised the challenges that families faced with their accommodation during the mobilisation period of the new contract”.
I resent the defensive language used by some of these companies. When it mentions the “mobilisation” of the new contract, it is hiding behind language that the armed forces tend to use, and it is obfuscation.
Helen Morgan
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. A mobilisation period under a contract is typically six to nine months. To my knowledge, it has been 18 months since that contract was implemented. We should not still be experiencing problems with it. That is why it is so important that we get clarification on whether steps are being taken to improve performance under it.
Richard Foord
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that excuses to do with a contract handover period are hard to bear in any case, but certainly when such a great length of time has elapsed.
To bring all that to a conclusion, we need to step back from the detail and ask what this means. The Army is being shrunk to just 73,000 regular soldiers. That is a substantial drop from 84,000 even a year ago, and certainly a large drop from 120,000 when I was serving. Partly, that is due to a failure to retain excellent people. Clearly, the armed forces continue to retain some truly excellent people, but some great people are being lost to the service because of experiences such as those I have described. In the armed forces continuous attitude survey this year, just 34% of service personnel said they felt valued. If we do not realise that service is not just about the service person, but the experience of their wider family, we will continue to have these sorts of problems.
James Cartlidge
I was referring specifically to the constituency of the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire, and I will write to him with the full details, as I said.
I turn to other colleagues’ contributions. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) referred to a discrepancy. To be completely frank, I was not aware of that so I implore him to write to me with the full details. He illustrated how important this issue is in every part of the Union, so I pay tribute to him for his contribution—and he was not called last, which was a great benefit to today’s debate.
I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), who has raised this issue with me previously in oral questions and has been a doughty campaigner on it. I know she has had some significant issues in Clive, for example. On the current position, the figures on damp and mould represents 62% of the total outstanding that we believe need treatment, and 1,360 have been completed to date. She also spoke about the impact on health. I understand the importance of that, which is why we were so determined to get extra money in and why I announced the winter plan showing how damp and mould packages will be implemented for individual properties.
Helen Morgan
On the point about bases that is to be closed, Clive barracks is due to be closed in 2029. Is there is a risk that, because it has a finite lifespan, we are not putting in the investment we need and that we are accepting poor-quality accommodation for what is still a good number of years? What is the Minister’s plan to address that?
James Cartlidge
That is a fair question. I was talking about the minimum standards that we require, which apply to about 96% of our estate. To reassure the hon. Lady, they apply irrespective of whether the accommodation is not planned for disposal or otherwise.
The hon. Lady also asked about Annington. She will be aware that it has been subject to court action recently and therefore, although she made an excellent point, I am very restricted in what I can say publicly. Certainly, it is an issue to keep an eye on.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton for his service in the Adjutant General’s Corps. He made a very good point about contracts, which of course are important. We should be wary of assuming that another arrangement would be necessarily cheaper or more efficient, but there is no doubt that there were major issues in the initial transition. We have now seen an improvement on some key performance indicators, but where performance has fallen short, we have, where appropriate, withheld profit.
The hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) spoke about engagement with armed forces personnel. All I can say is that as Minister for Defence Procurement, I am responsible for the estate, and when I have been out visiting the estate I generally find that there is a way of having regular engagement on the condition of accommodation. I saw that recently when I visited Odiham with my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena). That meant a great deal to the service personnel that we met, so regular engagement does happen in respect of accommodation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Morgan Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)
Currently, 96.5% of the service family accommodation meets or exceeds the Government’s decent homes standard; only those properties should be allocated to service families. The Government continue to invest significant sums to improve the quality of UK service family accommodation. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation received an investment of £400 million over this financial year and the next as part of the defence Command Paper refresh, meaning that the forecast £380.2 million for this year is more than double last year’s investment in maintenance and improvements.
James Cartlidge
The hon. Gentleman asks an excellent question. We are aware that what happened last winter was not good enough. Too many homes were affected, particularly by damp and mould. That is why we have prioritised getting the investment in, and it has more than doubled in the current financial year. I am pleased to confirm to him that last week I set out our winter plan. It shows that 4,000 homes in the defence estate would benefit from significant work on damp and mould, which is about 60% of the total number that require that work.
Helen Morgan
A constituent of mine who lives in Clive barracks at Tern Hill in Shropshire has reported that he lives in rat-infested accommodation, sometimes with two to six soldiers living in the same room. As a result, shipping containers have been placed in the grounds—about 40 at the end of August—and kitted out like budget hotel accommodation for those soldiers to live in. Can the Minister provide any reassurance that these servicemen will be provided with somewhere appropriate to live in the near future?
James Cartlidge
I am obviously sorry to hear about that case. I would ask the hon. Member to write to me with the details, and I will look into it with the DIO. The key thing is that, wherever we are talking about—whichever specific barracks or base—if we are going to get on with the works, we need the money there, and we have got that. We have put in place the extra £400 million, and as I set out in the winter plan, thousands of forces personnel will now benefit from that work.
James Cartlidge
I am alarmed to hear that. It is a pleasure to take a question from my right hon. Friend, who is my constituency neighbour; it is not far for me to travel, and I would be delighted to do so.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
James Cartlidge
The hon. Lady asks a very good question. To be clear, the figure of 4,000 homes with damp and mould is for this winter: we have put in place £400 million of additional spending. Of course, as we move into next year, we will look at what further work can be undertaken so that we can deal with all the other properties.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Morgan Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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James Cartlidge
I visited Catterick on Friday and I discussed precisely that matter with senior members of the armed forces based at Catterick. The characterisation that my right hon. Friend uses is not correct. These matters are being considered objectively and carefully, but that work is ongoing.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
The Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families (Dr Andrew Murrison)
The Defence Infrastructure Organisation provides additional needs and disability adaptations to service family accommodation. Those provide changes to SFA to meet a family’s needs, as set out by a suitably qualified healthcare professional. Once the scope of any adaptation has been agreed with all parties, works will be delivered as quickly as possible. That gives service personnel reassurance that their families’ needs can be met wherever they are assigned, regardless of the length and number of postings they have within their service career.
Helen Morgan
The Minister will remember that in June I asked about a badly injured veteran in my constituency. He has written confirmation from the former Defence Minister in 2021 that he would receive extensive adaptations to his home. Those adaptations have not happened, and the situation is so serious that Op Courage has instigated safeguarding proceedings against the Ministry of Defence to protect my constituent. In June the Minister requested that I write to him. I did so yet again, but I still have not received a reply. Will the Minister meet me finally to sort this out? In doing so, will he reassure the House that a Conservative Minister’s word is worth the paper it is signed on?
Dr Murrison
I think that is a little harsh. I have discussed this matter with the hon. Lady, and I would of course be more than happy to meet her to discuss her constituent’s case further. She will forgive me if I do not share the details with the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Helen Morgan Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
May I place on record our gratitude to Cornwall Council and Falmouth, and all the organisers of the national Armed Forces Day this year—the town laid on an extraordinary event, which was a great tribute to the men and women of the armed forces—as well as all the other local authorities that laid on events up and down the country? Of course I would welcome a bid from Southport; I will also welcome bids from all over the country, and I look forward to this becoming a growing competition to recognise the men and women of our armed forces.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
On 24 October 2021, the former Defence Minister, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin), wrote to my predecessor and confirmed that a badly injured veteran in my constituency would receive adaptations to his home. Delays ensued, and last week I had a meeting with someone from the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, in which he declined to turn his camera on and said that the work had not been signed off by a person with the right authority. Will the Minister confirm whether the former Minister had the authority, and will he honour that commitment?
James Cartlidge
The hon. Lady is more than welcome to write to me with the details, and I will look into this as soon as possible.