“Unworkable" housing rights bid protecting Royal Navy, Army and RAF homes rejected over "security constraints"
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A bid by peers to apply formal housing protections to military homes has been rejected, after the Government claimed it would be “unworkable due to access and security constraints”.
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook urged MPs to vote against proposals to bring Ministry of Defence accommodation within the scope of the new decent homes standard requirements. Instead, a report on the standard of military homes will be published by the Ministry of Defence every year, the Labour MP told the Commons.
MPs voted 325 to 171, majority 154, to reject the Lords’ amendment to the Renters’ Rights Bill. A call by peers for pet owners to pay an additional deposit worth three weeks’ rent, to cover any potential damage, was also rejected. A proposed new ground for eviction when a property is needed to house a carer for the landlord or a member of their family was thrown out by MPs.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Pennycook said: “This Government is absolutely determined to improve the standard of service family accommodation across the entire defence estate. The Government cannot accept this amendment. As has been debated at length at various stages of the Bill, the Ministry of Defence are absolutely clear that subjecting secure defence sites to local authority inspections, as this amendment would do, is unworkable due to access and security constraints.”
The Liberal Democrats criticised the decision. Housing spokesperson Gideon Amos said: “Our armed forces should not be the only group in Britain excluded from the right to a decent home in legislation.”
Shadow housing secretary Sir James Cleverly said the Government’s reasoning over ignoring peers’ concerns in relation to accommodation for carers was “shocking”. “The Government’s argument was, there aren’t that many people, and frankly, they’re all posh, so we can ignore them,” he said.
Mr Cleverley said ethnic minority families “often live in close proximity to each other, and there will be communities like this all across all across the country where perhaps the elders of that family have rented properties which have tenants in them”. Disregarding this, diminishing this as an idea, just because it is something that the frontbench accuse only the posh members of the other place doing, I think, is rather distasteful,” he added.
Mr Pennycook had earlier said “the Government is profoundly sympathetic to the needs of those who require care “, but could not support the amendment for two reasons. The first is a lack of evidence that the practice is widespread, and the definition of carer “is so broad that the scope for abuse is substantial”. MPs voted 335 to 160, majority 175 to reject amendment 64. MPs voted 398 to 93, majority 305 to reject amendment 11 regarding pets.
The government is pushing to reform accommodation under the defence housing strategy, with many of the measures under the Consumer Charter.