Defence Supplementary Estimate 2021-22

Debate between John Spellar and Peter Grant

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I wish I had not let the right hon. Gentleman intervene, because he has just stolen my thunder, but never mind—“It’s nae loss whit a freen gets”, I think is the phrase we would use in Fife.

The single living accommodation, at the time the NAO started looking at it on 31 October 2010, was being used by almost exactly 80,000 armed forces personnel, or more than half the entire number of people working in our armed forces. Some 36% of those 80,000 people were living in accommodation rated grade 4 or below. The accommodation was so poor that the MOD did not even have the cheek to charge rent on it—that is how bad it was. I do not know what accommodation standards legislation is like in England, but certainly in Scotland it would be illegal to rent out some of that accommodation as a private landlord, a social landlord or a local authority.

[John Spellar]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

I am sorry, but I really do need to make progress. I could talk until 7 o’clock, if the right hon. Gentleman wants me to, but I think other Members wish to speak.

The Public Accounts Committee reported that the Commands—the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force—planned to use some of the £16.5 billion of additional funding to address the backlog in maintenance and repairs of that accommodation, which at the time was estimated to be about £1.5 billion. The Committee reported at the same time:

“However, this extra funding seems to have already been spent more than once before it had even arrived with the Department”.

As I am sure many hon. Members are aware, if we listed the number of times that Ministers or civil servants told us that an MOD funding problem would be fixed by that additional money, welcome though it is, it would certainly add up to many times. Perhaps that is why they are a wee bit coy about giving us a detailed breakdown of exactly what the money will be spent on, because once they do that we will find out that it will not go nearly far enough.