Speeches by Carns.

“If the hon. Member will let me, I will come back to him with a specific timeline for the process. In reply to an earlier question, there are 122 housing officers in total, and the figure will increase over time. Each housing officer is responsible for 300 to 400 homes. Although the housing officer will be a specific in…”

“I agree. The mould action plan got after a large chunk of the problem. I know there was work that went on previously, including “Stick or Twist?” and other reviews, but now that we have got rid of the Annington deal and got control of our estate, we can take a far more strategic outlook. That is what the defence housin…”

“I thank the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford for tabling the amendment. I absolutely recognise the importance of facilitating contact visits between service personnel and their families; there are people here with experience of that. The reality is that as we have come into government, we have the wrong hous…”

“It is absolutely right and proper that we do that. I would like to go a step further: we could probably organise a sit-down with Natalie Elphicke Ross and the team at the Defence Housing Service. It has already been thought through, but they can explain it. If the right hon. Gentleman has any insight into how he would …”

“I shall speak first to amendment 2. I thank the hon. Member for his engagement. The measures in the Bill build on 18 months of work to stop the rot in defence housing and build for the future. We are buying back 36,000 military family houses from Annington and delivering a new consumer charter. We have already got afte…”

“I fundamentally disagree. The review of single living accommodation will describe the complexity of the problems we have across the entire estate with both the shape and size of our single living accommodation, the requirements of a changing population, and how best to manage them. To combine the two would detract in p…”

“Single living accommodation is often hundreds of rooms—think student accommodation—in barrack blocks behind the wire. Service family accommodation is often on the other side of the wire, out in the local population. Single living accommodation houses individuals rather than families. The whole set-up is completely diff…”

“The requirements are different for SLA and family accommodation, but we both want the same thing: the best accommodation, whether for a family or a single person living on base, either separated from their family or single. What I can offer the hon. Member is to engage and talk him through the single living accommodati…”

“I completely accept that. There are just nuances and differences in the requirements, and that will be reflected in the outcomes of both reviews. Again, I offer that engagement—if the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells would like to get involved and ensure that his points are made as the strategy is built, he can affect t…”

“I make it clear that we are not talking about amending the Renters’ Rights Act; we are talking about the Armed Forces Bill, but I am happy to take this offline and talk about the nuance between the two if required. We need to be clear that this does not mean we are complacent about the condition of single living accomm…”

“I turn to amendment 16, tabled by the retired hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford—”

“I thank the right hon. Member for his comments. I will raise them with the Security Minister, and push exceptionally hard. The motion suggests that we are failing to learn lessons from Ukraine. Let me make it absolutely clear that these are two separate issues. This Government are leading. We committed £4.5 billion in …”

“I will give way one more time.”

“There are clear NATO defence spending targets. That is written down, and will be produced in due course.”

“I completely agree. We have to get the defence investment plan right, and we have to ensure that it balances all the different problems that we face, whether they relate to air defence in the middle east and the lessons identified there or, indeed, the lessons identified in Ukraine.”

“It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank everyone for our progressive and balanced debates so far. I am delighted to introduce clause 2, which extends the armed forces covenant legal duty, delivering a manifesto commitment to strengthen support for our armed forces. The clause will amend par…”

“I thank hon. Members for their contributions on clause 2 and the new clauses. They are based on the right intent, and Members are trying to do the best by our serving and ex-serving population. I will leave the script and step back to look at where we have come on this journey. Under the previous Government, the Office…”

“Sir Andrew is an exceptionally good man, and few are more knowledgeable than him on veterans matters. We have a position where, in some cases, veterans are seen as victims, but we have no central body that understands the totality of veterans issues across the United Kingdom. Head Valour is therefore coming into place …”

“I will continue and then give way in a minute. We have taken more action in the past 20 months than the Conservatives managed in the 14 years before that, with more than 1,200 major defence contracts, 86% of which have been awarded to British-based businesses. The Conservatives argued that we should spend 2.5% of GDP o…”

“I thank the hon. Member for allowing the intervention. I cannot describe the laughing and bickering that is going on right now, when we have troops in harm’s way. There has to be a level of seriousness, whether we are discussing the nuclear deterrent or investment opportunities and mistakes made. We have troops in harm…”