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Defence Policy

That is absolutely right. Indeed, a Patrick Barkham article in The Guardian back in April dealt with this issue. Essentially, when the accommodation becomes surplus, Annington, which owns it, refurbishes it and sells it on. I might be wrong and the Minister might want to correct me, but, as I understand it, there is no formal mechanism by which those houses can be awarded to service personnel, or offered to them with some form of discount. In the case of RAF Coltershall, which was referred to in the newspapers, Annington agreed that half the houses would go to service personnel. The Guardian cited the case study of a woman and her family who literally camped out for several days to get a house, because they were required to spend 22 of every 24 hours in the queue. Her husband was in Iraq, and in order to succeed—the price had not been confirmed—they had to queue up. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that when he winds up. Although this issue is not the MOD’s responsibility, I hope that it can persuade Annington to look again at whether it is appropriate to have the families of service personnel camping in a field to get a surplus house. Before I came to the House tonight, I visited the website of Terra Firma, a powerful and successful private equity company that I would not criticise per se, and which put together this deal. As I understand it, the Nomura bank was the primary investor. However, it did not have that English, home counties twang, so Annington—the name sounded a bit more English, and a little more acceptable to some who objected at the time to a Japanese investment bank taking over MOD quarters—was chosen as the name of the vehicle. However, that is ancient history. I was interested to read how Terra Firma describes what it does, and why it is so successful as a private equity vehicle. We should bear it in mind that the following was written in 1996, after 17 years of Tory government:"““Terra Firma focuses on businesses where our views differ from the market consensus. Companies that are out of favour, usually as a result of being neglected, under-managed or under-invested by their owners.””" That is the state that MOD housing was in at the end of the period of Conservative government. After years of neglect, the then Government sold off housing cheap, hoping to bolster their chances at the following year’s election. That clearly did not work, but the last thing on their minds when they sold those houses and created the mess that we have today, which the Labour Government are doing their very best with, was the welfare of service personnel. The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) made a number of excellent points about garrisons. There is a danger that the big garrisons that we inevitably have now will lead, if we are not careful and do not take appropriate steps, to a greater degree of insularity, in that fewer people in civilian life will have contact with service personnel. That is why the Territorial Army is so very important. The hon. Gentleman talked, as several other Members did, about the military covenant. We need to think of it not simply as a covenant between the armed services and the Government. It is about much more than that—it is about society and the way that society is. Earlier, I was fiddling around with my biro, wondering about its size. It is bigger than a 5.56 mm round, but a bit smaller than 7.62 mm ammunition. However, let us say that it is the same as the latter. Looking at it, one can see the sort of bullets shot at British service personnel by enemies across the world. That is why I prefer to call the military covenant ““rule 762””: it is easier and has a nicer ring to it. The term ““military covenant”” is one that people who are not acquainted with military language, acronyms and the oddities of the way we speak about service issues find hard to get their heads around. It means that service personnel—of all countries, as the concept is not confined to Britain—take extraordinary risks on behalf of their nation and that, in return, that nation honours them and looks after their unique needs. No one can argue with the concept, so the question is not whether we agree with it, but whether we observe it. The Royal British Legion campaign makes some valid policy points, although other elements are more arguable. Yet all hon. Members will agree that it makes an important philosophical point, and that it poses a question that society at large must answer. I do not want to sound too high minded, but I believe that all Members of Parliament, like many people outside, have a role to play in reminding the public of the extraordinary things that our service personnel do for our country. Every time people fiddle with a biro, they can use their imagination to remind themselves of the military covenant—or rule 762, if they prefer to call it that. Service personnel face extraordinary dangers on our behalf. The responsibility to ensure that that is remembered does not lie only with politicians or people interested in politics, but with society as a whole.