§ 6. Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire)If he will make a statement on the refurbishment of service families' housing. [104540]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Peter Kilfoyle)We are spending £ 470 million on a comprehensive programme to refurbish service families housing. Currently those families' quarters which have been upgraded total 7,958, or 14 per cent. A further 23,514, or 42 per cent., are close to this standard. The remaining families' quarters are at various stages of upgrade and it is planned that the programme will be complete by the end of 2005.
§ Mr. GrayI thank the Minister for that answer, but does he admit that about £ 11 million has been cut from the budget this year for the much-needed refurbishment of service accommodation? About 30,000 service families are currently living in substandard housing. Is he not concerned about the many vacant houses? For example, at RAF Lyneham in my constituency, there are about 80 houses vacant on a relatively small site. In that context, will he take an early opportunity to have a word with Councillor Mrs. Elizabeth Hitchens, the Liberal Democrat housing chairman on the North Wiltshire district council, who by chance is also a Ministry of Defence employee and the manager of the said 80 empty houses at RAF Lyneham?
§ Mr. KilfoyleI try to avoid talking to Lib Dem housing spokesmen. We have one in the city which I represent in part. The Lib Dems are making a big enough mess there to compensate for everywhere else.
The hon. Gentleman will be well aware that the plans for RAF Lyneham, in which I know he takes a tremendous interest, will include upgrading the Slessor road, Melsome road and Preston lane estates. I am sure that he will be happy about that. There is no reduction in the money that has been allocated for these purposes. The hon. Gentleman should examine the record of the Conservative party when it was in government before he came into the House, and the debacle of Annington Homes, when properties were sold off in a so-called private finance initiative, which seemed to be balanced entirely in the interests of the Nomura bank rather than those of the families housed in those properties.
§ Dr. Doug Naysmith (Bristol, North-West)Does the Minister agree that the previous Government's actions, especially on the sale of married quarters, were totally botched and appalling value for money for the taxpayer?
§ Mr. KilfoyleI have to agree with my hon. Friend; the previous Government did a botched-up job. We—including the families who are forced to live in substandard accommodation—have had to pay the price for the deal that the previous Government did, which partly financed tax cuts that the country could not afford. The people who lived in those houses could not afford for money to be dissipated in that way.
§ Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath)The Minister knows that there is a great deal of service accommodation in my constituency. He will recall that in various sessions of Defence questions last year, I raised grave anxieties with the Minister for the Armed Forces about the way in which discussions were conducted between Ministry of Defence officials, especially Defence Estates officials, and officers of my local borough council. They bypassed the interests of elected representatives.
The Minister will be as shocked as I was to hear that, in the past few weeks, Ministry of Defence officials attempted to talk in confidence to officers of the council, thus completely bypassing councillors of all three parties who have a democratic mandate. There is anxiety about married quarters accommodation, and the danger of sweetheart deals between Defence Estates officials and developers, who will ignore the interests of local people. Will the Minister and his colleagues give a further rocket to officials in Defence Estates and ensure that those of all three parties who are democratically elected are consulted first about issues that relate to Deepcut and the Royal Logistic Corps and other defence sites?
§ Mr. KilfoyleThe hon. Gentleman will know that there is a long-standing and well-established procedure of confidentiality in such discussions. I am not sure whether he is clear about the difference between Defence Estates and the Defence Housing Executive. We are firmly committed to ensuring that those who live in substandard housing will live in housing of an appropriate quality by the end of the programme in 2005.
Many improvements are already under way. I cannot speak about specific housing in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, but the work that has been done on housing in, for example, Catterick, is of a standard that we want to achieve for all our service families.