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Strategic Defence Review (Green Paper)

The hon. Gentleman knows that we have invested hugely in the estate, and his constituency and constituents have been the beneficiaries of considerable investment. However, we need to consider to what degree our structures should encourage home ownership among our armed forces. Many of them are going that way in any case, so we must consider to what degree we should continue to encourage them to be tied to the provision of housing that goes with accompanied service. We have to grapple with that issue, and it is raised in the Green Paper so that we can think about it in the defence strategic review. People worry about the potential effects of losing accompanied service accommodation, but societal trends appear to be going in that direction in any case. It seems to be the desire of most people to own their own home, and that applies to service personnel as to anybody else.