The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) says it supports plans to improve access to privately owned and social housing as part of proposals to reinforce the military covenant between the nation and its armed forces.

At a meeting on Monday attended by the CML and a range of other bodies, housing minister Grant Shapps said he wanted to prioritise service men and women under the government’s FirstBuy Scheme, look at how service personnel could benefit from other first-time buyer initiatives, and address credit scoring issues that can affect mortgage applications by serving men and women.

The meeting, which was attended by builders, councils, defence officials and representatives of services’ charities, as well as lender representatives, saw Shapps also outlining a series of proposals to improve access for service men and women to social housing.

These included fairer treatment for military personnel applying to live in housing controlled by councils and making sure national planning rules have enough flexibility to allow disabled ex-service men and women to occupy homes that suit their needs.

On the mortgage application process, lenders accept the over-arching principle that serving men and women should not be disadvantaged by their military service.

The CML says that in practice, this means lenders should ensure that their systems do not reject applications because they come from British Forces Post Office addresses, take applications from military staff out of their automated processes where it is appropriate, and reinforce internal policies and procedures for communicating to their own front line staff and intermediary networks how to treat applications from military personnel.