Asylum seekers living in former MoD site went on hunger strike conditions were so bad - yet we expect our military heroes to live in squalor - Philip Ingram
The disgusting conditions at RAF Benson
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The MoD's 'Defence Accommodation Policy', updated on its website only in March this year, says in its opening paragraphs; “defence continues to consider how we best support our people and ensuring that they have access to high quality subsidised accommodation in line with modern living standards and the support that meets their varied needs, health, and wellbeing.”
I was in the British Army for 26 years and have been out for 14, those same statements were made virtually every year of my service and since. However, for every one of those years and clearly today, the reality for many, is very different.
The MoD has a lot of accommodation. It is split into single living accommodation, or SLA, and service family accommodation, or SFA for, as it says on the tin, families. It has approximately 154,000 rooms for single personnel that vary from ancient rotting portacabins to more plush student dorm type rooms. It has some 48,000 family homes of varying sizes, build quality and age.
According to a report published last year for Parliament, roughly one in three armed forces personnel are living in the poorest rated military accommodation, with a staggering 1,378 living in rental accommodation so poor that they do not have to pay any rent.
A very quick review of social media and quotes like, “My sister's military accommodation (husband is a WO1) is an utter, mould ridden disgrace!” “Military family living with rats and a sink hole in (our) garden, and I’ve been asking for help for months.”
“We have a massive water leak under our house that needs sorting, we reported 2 weeks ago and it's getting exponentially worse.”
Reflect the comments given to an investigation by the Defence Select Committee in the last Parliament, only after the MoD had to be forces to allow service personnel to give evidence.
Reports of rat infestations, no hot water, no heating, mould, no electricity for days, are unfortunately commonplace in both SLA and SFA.
However, the new Minister for Veterans and People, Al Carns, a former Royal Marines Colonel, justifying an up to 6% rise in accommodation charges for service personnel, said "I can speak for my own personal experience of living in family’s accommodation. That is a good deal." Maybe he hasn’t had time to read reports on the reality yet?
In March 2023 Luke Pollard MP, in opposition, launched the Homes Fit for Heroes campaign, “to highlight the poor state of armed forces accommodation”.
In July 2024 he was appointed Minister of State for the Armed Forces, effectively the MoD number two to the Secretary of State.
One month later, on 5th August it was widely reported that the MoD wrote to defence contractors, including those responsible for accommodation and its upkeep saying make material in-year savings”, or present plans for efficiency savings “as quickly as possible.”
Apparently 2.5% savings are being sought which in MoD terms usually means must be found.
Of course, during the election campaign Keir Starmer said, “A Labour government would aim to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP.”
Instead, he is cutting it, his own ministers who before the election lambasted the last Government for their woeful approach to service accommodation are now cutting vital funding to maintain those woeful standards.
He forgets last year it was reported that occupants of an asylum accommodation centre at the former Ministry of Defence (MOD) site at Wethersfield, in Essex, went on hunger strike in a protest over conditions.
It is time for the MoD to put its people first and give them somewhere adequate and safe to live, that’s all they want, to feel valued, as until then there will never be enough personnel to man the tanks, ships and aircraft needed to defend our freedoms.
It is sad that our service personnel aspire to adequate, simply adequate living conditions.