Renters’ Rights Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 106, to which I have attached my name. For decades now, I have seen at close hand the deficiencies in service families’ accommodation. They range from an inability to get things fixed to serious problems with damp and mould. They are always irritating, and too often disgraceful. 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, not because they do not care—of course they care—but because of budgetary constraints, institutional inefficiencies, bureaucracy and other organisational issues.

I served in the military for 43 years and I have been out of it for nearly 15; and yet, the problems persist. 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? We have been told that we should not worry too much, because 90% of service families’ accommodation meets or exceeds the decent homes standard already. Well, even if that is so, does the Minister think that one in 10 service families living in substandard accommodation is acceptable? I do not. Perhaps she could clarify that point later.

In the debate in another place, the Government maintained, as we have heard, that this amendment is impracticable because there would be problems with local authorities gaining access to service families’ accommodation behind the wire on military sites. We debated this very issue during the passage of the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill, when the Government saw no difficulties with civilian officials gaining access to sites behind the wire that are much more sensitive than service families’ accommodation. Frankly, this kind of bureaucratic brush-off is not worthy of such a serious debate on such a serious issue.

I refer the Minister to the recent strategic defence review, the conclusions of which have been accepted by the Government. It says that the

“transformation of UK Defence must ultimately be delivered by its people … Targeted intervention is needed to tackle Defence’s workforce crisis”,

including

“prioritised investment … in accommodation that falls well short of the standards required”.

In the context of the future security of this country, can the Minister explain to the long-suffering families of service personnel why they are not entitled to the same formal protection being accorded to renters in the civilian sector? I think she will find that extraordinarily difficult to do. If we are forced to divide on this issue, I trust that the House will send a message loud and clear to those people that they are entitled to that protection and much more besides.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. I put my name to Amendment 106 because of my experience in representing the Armed Forces in a previous role in the other place. Also, to be candid, I am sure that several of us have had family members in the Armed Forces over the years. It has always struck me that if it is good enough for social housing, and good enough for private rented housing, as is being put in through the Bill, why on earth is it not good enough for the homes of our brave men and women who put their lives on the line every time they don that Armed Forces uniform?

Furthermore, in my experience, undoubtedly the quality of housing—I will not pretend it is homogenous; right across the country, some fantastic new accommodation is being built—is unfortunately a key factor in why people leave the Armed Forces. I will use the example of Rock Barracks, home to 23 Parachute Engineers, just outside Woodbridge. That is the kind of base where people are not there for lifetime basing. The strategy going ahead is that once people are part of a lifetime base, they might be able to buy their own home rather than be necessarily in Armed Forces accommodation. That does not happen with some of these specialist regiments. Actually, the base commander was one of the people who invited me in when I was getting letters from constituents who were really irritated about what was going on in their homes and how it was taking time to be fixed.

Of course, that can be fixed with a better company, but the key point here is that putting this into legislation not only gives reassurance to our soldiers and officers who are thinking about their families—they should not even have to think about what is going on with their families while they are abroad—but gives the families the assurance that they can have a very clear legal expectation about the state of their homes and what should be done if they are not in that state.

Going further, welfare is of course an element in the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill, and I think the Government have talked about housing. But the legislation specifically refers to matters where the Secretary of State can specify, and if it is believed that these matters might go against the safety of somebody or against national security, the commissioner can be stopped from investigating. Frankly, we all know how long it takes to get a commissioner to do anything. It is better to have the high standard in the first place. I am very conscious that the Government may try to say, “Things will be better in the future”. I am in a position now to say that enough is enough. We will be very happy if the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, pushes this to a Division; I will certainly be in the voting Lobbies with her this afternoon.

[Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 106A in this group. I also echo fully the support for Amendments 106, 109 and 119, which is consequential, from the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. I thank the right reverend Prelate for his support as well.