The Government today faced tough questioning over the state of homes for the families of British military personnel serving their country.
The row in the Commons during defence questions saw senior Tory backbencher Mark Francois demand that the civil servant in charge of military housing is removed.
It comes after revelations of failures to do safety checks in military housing including getting gas certificates.
Mr Francois, who is a former Armed Forces Minister and member of the Defence Select Committee, has been pushing the Government hard on the issue of military housing for a number of years.
It comes after a recent survey revealed that less than one in five (19 percent) of military personnel are satisfied with the housing they are provided with.
In a bad tempered defence questions, Mr Francois said: “If a private or a professional landlord did not properly complete these safety checks, they would be sued.
“It is completely unacceptable that we put armed forces personnel and their loved ones at risk for months because the Future Defence Infrastructure Services contract that is meant to do that is completely broken.
“If the head of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, who is meant to oversee this, is completely out of his depth, which some of us believe he is, after this, should he not consider his position?”
But defence minister Andrew Murrison refused to accept that heads needed to roll for the failures in accommodation.
Instead he insisted that Defence Secretary Ben Wallace had acted quickly on the issue.
Mr Murrison said: “I am grateful to my right honourable friend for his comments.
“The important thing is that when my honourable Friend the Minister of State got to know about this, he acted immediately to put the matter right.
“I am not really interested in getting people’s scalps; I am interested in putting the matter right, and that is exactly what is happening.”
The answer though failed to satisfy Mr Francois who was furious after the exchanges.
He told Express.co.uk that the situation with military accommodation is now intolerable.
He said: “In the latest Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey, published on 1 June 2023, only 19 percent of service personnel – less than one in five – were satisfied with the maintenance of their service accommodation.
“Now, even worse, we hear that the safety of their loved ones may have been compromised too.
“This behaviour, which would simply not be tolerated from any commercial landlord, has gone on long enough and it is about time the chronically falling Defence Infrastructure Organisation – and the highly paid official who heads it up – were finally held to account.”
