£603 million of repairs to the barracks where Britain’s single servicemen and women live has no money behind it, an independent review for the Ministry of Defence has revealed.
The review found around four in ten personnel in single living accommodation were in rooms graded at the bottom of the scale, yet ministers have promised only a full response “in the coming months”.
The Elphicke Ross review, published by the MOD on Tuesday, says the estimated £603 million of maintenance and remedial work needed on single living accommodation, known in the forces as SLA, is “currently unfunded”.
The MOD’s own infrastructure teams estimate that £14 billion could be needed over the next 30 years to bring every block up to a serviceable condition and keep it there, including about £1.2 billion in the first year alone. The review cautions that those estimates are “not as robustly evidenced as they need to be”.
Against that, the department plans to spend £1.4 billion on new SLA buildings and upgrades between 2026 and 2030 under the Defence Investment Plan. It spent about £331 million on SLA in 2025-26.
The 92-page report paints a grim picture of where 77,412 soldiers, sailors and aircrew sleep. As of 31 October 2025, around 40 per cent lived in rooms assessed as Grade 4 or below, the lowest categories. Among the 51,231 junior ranks in SLA, about 65 per cent were in Grade 3, Grade 4 or below.
It describes “unsanitary washing facilities”, “heating that does not work, roofs with holes in them and bedroom doors with broken locks”. In this year’s survey of residents, 83 per cent had suffered a fault in the past 12 months, most often rooms that were too hot or too cold, leaks and blocked drains, and damp and mould.
Only 47 per cent of residents were satisfied with their accommodation, and 29 per cent said it had made them more likely to leave the Armed Forces.
The review also found waste. Only 60 per cent of SLA is in use and around a fifth may not be needed. Hotels cost around £48 million a year, and privately rented rooms £73 million, more than double the £32 million of five years ago. One new block for 50 people cost more than £18.6 million, over £370,000 a head.
The failure is not new, and the review says so. It finds that previous governments and the MOD “have done little”, and that the Defence Minimum Standard introduced in 2022, under the last Conservative government, “failed because there was no funding, no implementation plan, no timetable for improvement and no mechanism for enforcement”. In 2024 The Independent reported that the share in the worst-graded rooms was already nearly 40 per cent.
But Labour is now the Government, and has been for more than two years. It is Labour ministers who will decide whether the £603 million is found, and when.
Natalie Elphicke Ross, the former Dover MP who also led the review team behind last year’s Defence Housing Strategy, makes 19 recommendations. They include a new Decent SLA Standard so that “every bedspace is safe, warm, clean, and secure”, and a new Office for Military Accommodation. Full implementation should be achieved “by no later than the end of 2032”, with a detailed plan finalised within a year “with funding committed to deliver it”.
In a written statement, defence minister Calvin Bailey said the Government “welcomes the Review and its recommendations” but would “consider all 19 recommendations in more detail before setting out a full response in the coming months”. Air Marshal Sir Paul Lloyd, the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, will oversee the work. The statement committed no new money.
Parliament is already arguing over the same issue. On 20 October peers voted 259 to 173 to write a military homes standard for single living accommodation into the Armed Forces Bill. The Government resisted, saying it was not appropriate to tie SLA to the decent homes standard because of shared facilities, and similar amendments were defeated in the Commons. The bill now returns to MPs and must receive Royal Assent by 31 December, when the current Armed Forces Act expires.
Families face a wait too. In a separate written answer on Tuesday, Mr Bailey said the MOD would publish its delivery timeline for the £9.2 billion Defence Housing Strategy “over the next 12 months”, with 2,599 family homes upgraded since the strategy was launched.
The questions for ministers are straightforward. Will they find the £603 million of repairs the review says is unfunded? Will they accept a legal standard for barracks when the bill comes back to the Commons? And how many more winters will personnel spend in the worst-graded rooms before 2032?
“Our pride in our Armed Forces must include pride in our military accommodation too,” the review says.
Ministers now have its timetable. They have not yet given it a budget.
