Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much it costs his Department on an annual basis to pay for and maintain empty properties owned by his Department; how much and what proportion of that amount is spent on renting those properties; and what the total annual cost is of his Department's residential property portfolio.

The cost of holding and maintaining empty Service Family Accommodation (SFA) properties managed by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) in the UK in Financial Year 2021-22 was £37.9 million; of this, £33.8 million is attributed to rental costs.

The total cost of the MOD’s UK residential property portfolio for Financial Year 2021-22 was £429 million.

The MOD has an active management programme to continue to reduce the number of empty properties it holds. The SFA void rate has reduced from 23% in 2018 to c18% on 1 May 2022. Currently, in the UK, 1,100 vacant houses are earmarked for disposal and 2,600 are being kept vacant currently for modernisation and improvements. 25,000 moves were managed across the UK Defence Estate during the year 2021-22.