The men and women from Cornwall who serve in our military deserve, at the very least, a safe and decent home. Too often over the past 14 years, Forces families were let down as the Conservative government failed to invest in their housing and it's a problem that goes back further.

In 1996 the Conservative government under John Major sold off our military housing in one of the worst privatisation deals imaginable – selling off armed forces married quarters and renting them back at taxpayers’ expense. By the time Labour entered government, these rental payments had hit £600,000 a day, with homes run down and left in disrepair.

We cannot turn around years of failure on Forces housing overnight. But after only six months, this Labour government announced the landmark buy-back of 36,000 homes, bringing forces’ family housing into public ownership where they belong. We're reversing a disastrous privatisation, and have already taken greater control and are working at pace to drive up standards.

In the South West there are 12,605 military homes and 9354 have been brought back into public ownership.

Our deal on military homes gives us the opportunity to stop the rot and start the renewal of an estate run down over decades. Bringing real benefits and stability to military families, something many of them miss out on.

It’s not easy being a military family. You move frequently, often to places far from home. I came to Cornwall via Plymouth nearly 20 years ago when I was a military wife. When you’re moving every couple of years you need somewhere decent to move your family into that will immediately feel like home.

This deal delivers the common-sense standards for military homes that any of us should expect. There will now be tougher requirements so that homes are clean and functional when families move in, reliable repairs when things go wrong, named housing officers to help, an end to rules that ban families personalising and improving their homes, and a new, simpler complaints process to sort out problems.

These are the basics on which Forces families have been failed but where we will now act, with changes in place by the one-year anniversary of these homes being bought back.

Since entering government, Defence Secretary John Healey has given service personnel the largest pay rise in over 20 years, and ensured all Armed Forces personnel are paid the national living wage for the first time. He also agreed a settlement with Royal Fleet Auxiliary personnel. We have made sure armed forces veterans and their families will get priority access to social housing and set aside £3.5-million to aid homeless veterans - funding mental health care, job support and independent living. We have also legislated to recruit an Armed Forces Commissioner – an independent champion for forces and their families.

The new commitment to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence will also bring more jobs to Cornwall and contracts to employers such as Falmouth Docks.

This Labour government will look after our armed forces and veterans.