Today we reveal that military families have been stuck in intolerable living conditions due to contractors missing urgent maintenance appointments, even leaving people without hot water and heating. It is one more example of the depressing failure to house soldiers properly. We have previously reported that hundreds of families have been forced to complain about mould: the number of military homes that are too mouldy to live in has risen by two-thirds.
Substandard housing is in obvious contravention of the Armed Forces Covenant, which states: “Where serving personnel are entitled to publicly provided accommodation, it should be of good quality, affordable and suitably located.”
Failure to honour that pledge might be a factor in the worrying fall in recruitment and retention. The Armed Forces are being asked to do more and more, from Nato exercises deterring Russian aggression, to replacing strikers at the border. Yet, according to the statistics for the period October 2021 to October 2022, the number of people joining the Forces fell by 29.8 per cent compared with the previous year. The number leaving rose by 17.4 per cent.
The total strength of personnel declined by 6,640 during that period, and if the military were to gain a reputation for neglecting its members, it is easy to imagine even more citizens refusing to join – or personnel giving up and walking away.
This is why an underfunded military is always a false economy. It is a tool that one hopes never to use. When it becomes needed, however, it must be in the healthiest, best-resourced position possible.
Mouldy military homes are depleting our Armed Forces
The failure to provide adequate housing for military personnel could leave Britain exposed