They bypassed the interests of elected representatives. The Minister will be as shocked as I was to hear that, in the past few weeks, Ministry of Defence officials attempted to talk in confidence to officers of the council, thus completely bypassing councillors of all three parties who have a democratic mandate. There is anxiety about married quarters accommodation, and the danger of sweetheart deals between Defence Estates officials and developers, who will ignore the interests of local people. I am not sure whether he is clear about the difference between Defence Estates and the Defence Housing Executive. We are firmly committed to ensuring that those who live in substandard housing will live in housing of an appropriate quality by the end of the programme in 2005.
Many improvements are already under way.
I cannot speak about specific housing in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, but the work that has been done on housing in, for example, Catterick, is of a standard that we want to achieve for all our service families. Asset Sales 7. If his Department's targets for efficiency savings and receipts from asset sales have so far been achieved. The Ministry of Defence's targets for efficiency improvements and the sale of surplus estate assets cover the period 1998 to 2002, as set out in the Department's public service agreement.