Orders of the Day — Defence Estimates

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 12 Rhagfyr 1973.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Mr Ian Gilmour Mr Ian Gilmour , Norfolk Central 12:00, 12 Rhagfyr 1973

We are looking at this. Our belief—it cannot be a certainty—is that advertising does have a considerable effect. That is why last week we authorised an additional £400,000 advertising expenditure for recruitment. We must hope that the present situation is only a temporary setback.

Reverting to housing, I have been concerned recently about the number of empty married quarters. Inevitably, there will always be a number of houses empty because of the need to make repairs and the short intervals between occupations. But this does not represent a real problem. There are also houses that are no longer required which we try to dispose of as quickly as possible. More difficult problems arise when an Army unit is moved overseas and there is a time lag before another unit takes over the vacated barracks and associated married quarters.

To take another example, we may be introducing a new aircraft into service, and this may involve a chain reaction of redeployments. In the meantime, one or more stations may have to be kept empty temporarily with the associated married quarters.

We are looking into the possibility in this sort of situation of letting the houses temporarily to the local authorities, for example. There are problems, and the biggest is to ensure that we get the houses back again when we need them for members of the Services. We shall have to see whether we can solve that problem. Meanwhile, I am pleased to announce that we have in the last few days offered to make available the use of about 100 Army married quarters in Scotland for up to a year, to accommodate men working away from their homes on the construction of oil rigs so that they can have their families with them.