Housing crisis ‘is driving troops out’
JEREMY HUNT will not face any further parliamentary sanctions after apologising for the late reporting of his interest in a property company.
Following an inquiry, parliamentary standards commissioner Kathryn Stone has accepted his apology as the “appropriate” outcome for a breach of the MPs’ code of conduct which she said was “at the less serious end of the spectrum”. Ms Stone said she would not be referring him to the Commons Committee on Standards for further action. THE Ministry of Defence has fallen “woefully short” with its plan to meet the housing needs of troops, a new report has claimed.
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) has told the Government it runs the risk of driving people away from the armed forces unless a “coherent and detailed” housing strategy is developed.
The think tank’s paper, entitled The Home Front: The Future Accommodation Model For The UK Armed Forces, calls on the MoD to make significant changes to housing provision if it is to stay “affordable and relevant”.
The paper suggests the armed forces “should give increased priority to families’ accommodation” and recognise that it is a significant element in the overall employment offer.
While RUSI acknowledges that the MoD has recognised the need to reform through its Future Accommodation Model (FAM), the paper argues that the plans for this initiative are “woefully short on detail and methods of delivery, frustrating representatives of service families and A 15-YEAR-OLD boy fatally stabbed just yards from his home was “an angel”, his heartbroken grandfather has said.
The young victim was named by George Ellitts as his grandson, Keelan Wilson, a kind-hearted boy who once raised hundreds of pounds for Great Ormond Street Hospital in a sponsored hair-cut, he said. Speaking outside the family home in Wolverhampton, Mr Ellitts paid tribute to Keelan, who was fatally wounded in an attack on Tuesday other stakeholders”. The authors underline that “there is significant unease that the current FAM ambition will drive people, potentially, to leave the military rather than properly aiding retention”.
Moreover, the report states that the FAM does not adequately address the reality that the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force have differing needs and preferences for families’ living accommodation.
RUSI also points to the sell-off of more than 55,000 service family homes to Annington Property Limited in 1996 as “significant”.
The MoD was criticised in January after the National Audit Office (NAO) found the ministry was up to £4.2 billion worse off for the sale.
The MoD has since rented them back on 200-year underleases, and is paying more than £178 million a year for the remaining 39,000 properties.
RUSI’s report states that the sale has brought year-on-year financial obligations to the ministry that it is “struggling to manage effectively and to afford”. night. He said: “To me, he was an angel. He raised a few hundred pounds for Great Ormond Street Hospital a few years back, he had his hair cut, he had the lot off.”
Chief Superintendent Jayne Meir of West Midlands Police said: “Somebody knows who was responsible and they need to come forward.”
She said the police were working on whether it was “a random attack” or there was a motive.