HC Deb 14 February 2002 vol 380 c572W
Mr. Hancock

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) how many MOD houses are empty; and if he will make a statement; [34032]

(2) how many MOD houses have been empty for more than six months; and if he will make a statement. [34606]

Dr. Moonie

At the end of January 2002 there were some 10,500 empty married quarters in mainland UK. Of these, over 3,800 are in the course of disposal; some 2,000 are currently awaiting incoming families; a further 2,200 are being held for future unit deployments and some 1,100 are empty awaiting modernisation.

Some 4,500 married quarters in mainland UK have been empty for six months or more at the end of January 2002. Currently, 2,350 of this total are in the course of disposal. A further 1,600 are either awaiting future deployments or are empty pending refurbishment. The remaining 550 are subject to a rolling review of their long term retention.

Over many years, there has been a continuing decline in demand for service family housing. Currently, however, the Defence Housing Executive is making good progress with a substantial disposal programme. The number of disposals achieved since 1 January 2000 will shortly reach 10,000, with some thousands more to be disposed of during 2002–03

Mr. Hancock

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many MOD houses have been sold to the private sector, by year, since 1997; and if he will make a statement. [34608]

Dr. Moonie

In 1996, the great majority of the defence housing stock was sold to Annington Homes Ltd. (AHL) and leased back for service use. In response to the subsequent fall in demand from service families, many properties which are surplus to longer term service requirements have been, or will be, disposed of, but most such disposals result in release of the property back to AHL and thus do not constitute sales by the Ministry of Defence to the private sector. Disposals of non-AHL residential properties by MOD over the period are as follows.

Year Properties
1997–98 537
1998–99 500
1999–2000 208
2000–01 646
2001–021 175
1 So far