MP calls for Govt to ‘wake up’ as military morale dips

Tiverton & Honiton MP Richard Foord has urged the Government to sort out substandard armed forces’ accommodation, after a survey revealed military morale to have taken a dive.

New figures from the Ministry of Defence show morale in the armed forces has dropped to a five-year low, with frustration expressed at the poor standard of military accommodation.

Just one in five servicemen and woman are satisfied with the speed and quality of maintenance repairs to their properties, the annual survey shows.

Military families have been left exasperated by the service provided by Pinnacle, the company given over £141million of taxpayers’ money to provide customer service by the Ministry of Defence.

Issues have included waits of over a year for faults to be fixed, the wrong contractors being sent, and calls and complaints not being logged.

Devon MP Richard Foord, who served in the Army for over ten years, has repeatedly raised these long-running accommodation problems in Parliament and said that these new figures must act as a wake-up call to the Government.

Richard Foord, Liberal Democrat MP for Tiverton & Honiton, said:
“This survey shows morale has taken a dive for our service personnel and their families, who sacrifice so much to keep us safe.

"At a time when recruitment and retention is such a high priority for Defence, that business of keeping great people in the Armed Forces is made more challenging by the Government’s neglect of accommodation for service men and women.

“The extent of this scandal must act as a wake-up call for the Government. It is simply not good enough that those who serve their country are forced to live in cold, faulty and mouldy homes.

“Here in the West Country, service families with young children have been left for months with leaking roofs and for weeks without heating, after being messed around by contractors.

“Personnel who I’ve spoken with are weighing up whether it is worth continuing with their military careers when that means putting up with poor living conditions.

“The Government urgently needs to sort out its maintenance contracts and must act to bring service family accommodation up to standard.”