One in five North Yorkshire service personnel live in lowest-rated accommodation

Across the country, more than 25,000 people live in such accommodation, equating to one in three service personnel.

1,378 live in accommodation deemed so poor quality that no rent is charged to live in it, according to Labour.

Figures obtained by Luke Pollard, the shadow armed forces minister, come as he called on ministers to “sort out the dire state of defence housing”.

He told The Yorkshire Post: “This is contributing to more people leaving our armed forces, and contributing to the fall in morale.

“The really disturbing thing is that we looked at these figures last year and they haven’t moved since a year ago.

“We’ve been making the case that ministers need to prioritise this because I genuinely believe that if at any point over the last 13 years ministers and military leaders in the MoD had made this a priority to fix, it would have been fixed by now.”

The MoD grades its Single Living Accommodation based on quality across various categories such as heating, fixtures and fittings and the proximity of bathrooms.

Labour said that there is currently no minimum quality standard set for this type of accommodation and no minimum level for acceptable living conditions for service personnel.

One National Audit Office report in 2021 exposed “decades of underinvestment” and “problems with heating and hot water.” in these buildings.

The 2023 Armed Forces Continuous Attitude survey shows 46 per cent of tri-service personnel were dissatisfied with the overall standard of their accommodation.

This year, Mr Pollard launched Homes Fit for Heroes, a Labour campaign to highlight the poor state of armed forces accommodation that asks forces and their families to share their experiences of defence housing with Labour.

“We’re not talking about hundreds of thousands of homes here, we’re talking about a manageable number that can be addressed.

“Poor quality accommodation, black mould, leaky roofs, damp, that’s the kind of the stuff that eats away at your satisfaction with service life.

“We know that there are more people leaving the armed forces this year than have been recruited.”

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “The Defence Secretary has made the provision of higher quality accommodation for Service Personnel a personal priority, reflecting the selfless dedication our Armed Forces provide for the nation.

“That’s why we are introducing minimum standards to ensure all service personnel have access to good quality accommodation, and additionally ensuring issues are rightly addressed much more quickly.

“Over the next decade we are committed to spending more than £4 billion to make improvement to existing accommodation and build new living quarters for our service personnel.”