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Armed Forces Personnel

My hon. Friend is right. He knows a great deal about the matter, and I confirmed with him this morning that my comments are correct. The problem is damaging for morale; it is thoughtless and feckless; and the Minister needs to get a grip of it immediately. Attitudes need to be changed, particularly in the Royal Air Force, in the most urgent and profound way, and I have no doubt that my right hon. and hon. Friends want to see a serious improvement. I want to turn to the tricky question of service housing, which has been raised by the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), who is never able to stay after he has spoken, and a number of other hon. Members. The Government have made some big improvements to service housing, which I applaud. I have visited Tidworth and think that some of the service accommodation is absolutely marvellous. It is unwise to expect young people to join up and live in the kind of accommodation that was used in the past, so the change is very good. In the Lords last week, my noble Friend Lord Luke pointed out that too many British Army families still face housing problems at a time of increasing pressure. The Minister of State and I have wrestled with that intractable problem. My noble Friend quoted appositely from a speaker at the Army Families Federation conference:"““Most families feel passionately about their homes, army families perhaps more than most, since they can sometimes be the only stable thing in their lives. Their husbands or partners might be on operations abroad but their home is their base, the one concrete thing in an otherwise turbulent existence.””" This remains a very important matter in terms of retention and recruitment.