Select committee: Defence Committee
Conclusion 26
1st Report – Service Accommodation
Published 11 Dec 2024
Addressed to Ministry of Defence
Defence Committee Service Accommodation All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
We support the MOD’s decision to pause and conduct a review of the accommodation offer for SFA because of concerns around retention of personnel. However, we recognise that this decision has caused potential disappointment for the 45,000 personnel in long-term relationships and/ or with non-resident children, who might have hoped to become entitled to SFA in March 2024, and personnel who had expected to benefit from the new needs-based allocation. (Conclusion, Paragraph 134)
From: Defence Committee, 1st Report – Service Accommodation (HC 406), 11 December 2024
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 3 March 2025 (deadline 11 February 2025).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The MOD accepts most of the Committee's recommendations on service accommodation, partially accepting or agreeing with a small number of conclusions, and points to the Annington buy-back and a forthcoming military housing strategy as the basis for improvement.
- On damp and mould, the MOD accepts the conclusion and recommendation and says "Detailed statistics will be published as requested by June 2025." It also says cases are likely to continue emerging until the worst housing stock is replaced.
- The MOD says the Annington buy-back opens the way to a new military housing strategy, "to be published this year", with a stock condition survey to report by 30 April 2025.
- On the Home Hub portal, the MOD accepts the recommendations and says the DIO "anticipate launching Home Hub to a closed user group in Spring 2025", with wider access once user testing is complete.
- On winter preparedness and communication of the new accommodation offer, the MOD "partially accepts" conclusion 14 and "partially agrees" with conclusion 25. On the allocation of Service Family Accommodation, it says an announcement "will be made in due course".