Member

Finally, Lords amendment 39 would bring service family accommodation within scope of the modernised decent homes standard that the Government are introducing. I begin by once again acknowledging the integral role that safe and decent accommodation plays in the lives of our service personnel and their families. The Government are absolutely determined to improve the standard of service family accommodation across the entire defence estate—in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as England. However, the Government cannot accept the amendment. As has been debated at length at various stages of the Bill, the Ministry of Defence is absolutely clear that subjecting secure defence sites to local authority inspections, as this amendment would do, is unworkable due to access and security constraints. In any case, as we have made clear many times, the MOD already applies the decent homes standard as a benchmark, has gone further with its decent homes plus standard for service family accommodation, and has committed to complying with Awaab’s law requirements, and to mirroring any of its timescales for dealing with damp and mould in its key performance indicators.