Fury at £27k bill for MoD office revamp while troops live in squalor
More than £27,000 has been spent revamping the Defence Secretary’s private office while thousands of troops and their families are stuck in homes unfit to live in.
The Ministry of Defence has admitted splurging on new wallpaper and carpets when Ben Wallace held the post in 2022, before being replaced by Grant Shapps. And it comes as one military family feared their daughter was about to die after falling ill in their mouldy home.
A former Army colonel has blasted the Whitehall spruce-up as “disgusting”. And one decorator branded the cost of the work “excessive”, adding: “I can only assume that the actual wallpaper must have cost a fortune.”
The full cost, including £15,000 on wallpaper and £12,000 of new carpets, was disclosed by the MoD days after it emerged a two-year-old living in Service Families Accommodation was rushed to hospital with breathing difficulties. The family reported mould but were given a can of anti-mould spray and waited seven weeks for an inspection.
They said the toddler began coughing and vomiting, becoming “unresponsive, floppy and blue”. She was diagnosed with gastroenteritis and hypoglycaemia – which can be caused by exposure to mycotoxins in damp and mould. The family are now in temporary housing after a unit welfare officer stepped in.
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More than 25,000 troops are in homes deemed “deficient” by inspectors. Some 1,300 are so bad occupants cannot be charged rent under Government rules. Ex-Army intelligence officer Col Philip Ingram said: “I am disgusted the MoD feels it appropriate to spend huge sums on ministers’ offices. It beggars belief when so many soldiers are in substandard accommodation. It’s no wonder recruitment and retention are at all-time lows but it’s clear ministers don’t care, provided their offices are OK.”
It is not the first Tory wallpaper scandal. In 2022 it emerged then-PM Boris Johnson spent £7,000 of taxpayer cash painting over the infamous “gold” wallpaper in his Downing Street flat.
The MoD said: “The Defence Secretary has made improving the standard of military accommodation a personal priority. That is why we are investing an additional £400million over the next two years to improve military housing, [including] damp and mould improvements to about 4,000 properties.”
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