Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of an agreement with Annington homes to enable leased empty accommodation to be repurposed for Afghan refugees.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) continues to work closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and with the Home Office to support cross-Government efforts in identifying housing and settling requirements for eligible Afghans as they start their new lives in the UK. This includes the provision of Defence accommodation where appropriate.

Utilising Service Family Accommodation (SFA) properties to temporarily house eligible Afghan families provides much needed interim capacity and assistance to Local Authorities at a time when it remains challenging to source suitable accommodation, particularly for some of the larger families eligible under the Aghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP) scheme.

MOD has assessed that up to 550 such properties can be leased for between 12 months and five years, dependent on location, without impacting on Defence operations or Service families, and these properties have been offered up to Local Authorities to house ARAP families.

The Government aim is to provide long term, settled accommodation in local communities for Aghan families as they build new lives in the UK, and as of 16 March, 3,878 ARAP individuals had moved into such settled accommodation.