If the Conservatives win the general election, teenagers will be expected to take part in national service when they turn 18.
Exactly how the scheme would work has not yet been hammered out. The Tories have said they would set up a royal commission – a type of public inquiry – to come up with the details.
But here is what we know so far about what teenagers could be doing, who might be exempt and what would happen to those who refuse to take part.
Community volunteering: The vast majority of teenagers would take this pathway.
It would require them to spend one weekend a month volunteering, for one year – 25 days in total.
The voluntary placements would be in the local community, with organisations such as the police, the fire service, the NHS, or charities that work with older isolated people.
Conservative MPs have given various examples of the kinds of volunteering teenagers could do, including delivering prescriptions or food to infirm people, being a lifeguard, supporting communities during storms and working with search and rescue.
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Military training: 30,000 teenagers would be able to take up places to spend a year full-time in the armed forces.
Young adults would need to apply for the programme and tests would be used to select the best candidates.
This pathway would not involve combat. Rather, young people would “learn and take part in logistics, cyber security, procurement or civil response operations”, the Tories said.
Talking to Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, Home Secretary James Cleverly said those who choose the military option “will be motivated to join the military” after the year-long placement.
Image: Most teenagers would volunteer in their community under the national service scheme. Pic: Reuters
Who will be exempt?
The Conservatives have not announced details about who would be exempt from national service – but they have confirmed that royal children would be expected to take part.
When national service was in place after the Second World War, it covered “able-bodied men” and excluded blind people and men with a mental illness.
It is not clear whether similar rules would apply under the new proposal. Disabled people may not be automatically excluded as they were in the past given voluntary placements are likely to be suited to a wide range of people.
Where national or military service is a full-time requirement, people may be able to get an exemption if they are a university student, only son, single parent or professional athlete.
Would women have to do it too?
Yes, the plan involves all 18-year-olds regardless of gender.
Women were first included in national service during the Second World War, but after 1945 they were no longer included despite the scheme continuing for men.
How is national service different from conscription?
Conscription legally requires people to join the Armed Forces for a certain period.
The Tories’ plan for national service is different in that it does not compel people to serve with the military.
“Nobody will be compelled to do the military element,” he added.
It remains unclear how it will be made compulsory.
Speaking to Times Radio, Foreign Office minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan compared the compulsory nature of the proposed national service to young people having to attend school until they are 18.
She did not rule out the possibility of parents being fined if their children do not take part, but said the details of how the scheme would be made mandatory would be established by the royal commission.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, the Mr Sunak said: “To those who complain that making it mandatory is unreasonable, I say: citizenship brings with it obligations as well as rights. Being British is about more than just the queue you join at passport control.”
Will people be paid?
Mr Cleverly said those who do the military element will be paid – while those who choose to volunteer will not be paid.
How would it be funded?
The Conservatives said the national service programme would cost £2.5bn a year and would be funded by cash previously used for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion.
At the start of this year, top military officials touted the idea of conscription as they discussed what could happen if NATO went to war with Russia.
The head of the British Army said UK citizens should be “trained and equipped” to fight in a potential war, while Britain’s former top NATO commander said it was time to get over the “cultural hang-ups” around conscription.
Downing Street ruled out any move towards conscription, saying army service would remain voluntary.
But a similar model to the Tories’ national service scheme has been pitched recently.
Last year, centre-right thinktank Onward proposed a “Great British National Service” scheme.
Like the Conservatives’ current proposal, it focused on volunteering and suggested 16-year-olds should have to complete a certain number of volunteering hours.
A key difference was that it was not mandatory – it proposed a system where 16-year-olds were automatically enrolled, but could opt out.
Research commissioned by Onward showed 57% of British people supported national service and 19% opposed it.
It found the most popular model included civil and military activities, with 53% more likely to support a mixed programme.
The ideas won the support of the leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, and former Tory minister Rory Stewart.
What has the reaction been?
Critics from across the political divide have dismissed the Tories’ plan as unserious, while leading military figures are sceptical over how it would work.
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Sky’s military analyst Sean Bell assesses national service plan
Sir Keir Starmer called the national service policy “a sort of teenage Dad’s Army“, while Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall accused the policy of being “yet another unfunded spending commitment”.
She told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “That UK Prosperity Fund is supposed to be used to tackle economic inactivity and helping people get back into work so that really undermines another one of their arguments.
“This is an unfunded commitment, a headline-grabbing gimmick.”
Mr Cleverly said the main point of the policy was to make sure “people mix with people outside their bubble” for “community cohesion”.
He said: “We want to build a society where people mix with people outside their own communities, mix with people from different backgrounds, different religions, different income levels.
Another 23 female potential victims have reported that they may have been raped by Zhenhao Zou – the Chinese PhD student detectives believe may be one of the country’s most prolific sex offenders.
The Metropolitan Police launched an international appeal after Zou, 28, was convicted of drugging and raping 10 women following a trial at the Inner London Crown Court last month.
Detectives have not confirmed whether the 23 people who have come forward add to their estimates that more than 50 other women worldwide may have been targeted by the University College London student.
Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth said: “We have victims reaching out to us from different parts of the globe.
“At the moment, the primary places where we believe offending may have occurred at this time appears to be both in England, here in London, and over in China.”
Image: Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth
Zou lived in a student flat in Woburn Place, near Russell Square in central London, and later in a flat in the Uncle building in Churchyard Row in Elephant and Castle, south London.
He had also been a student at Queen’s University Belfast, where he studied mechanical engineering from 2017 until 2019. Police say they have not had any reports from Belfast but added they were “open-minded about that”.
“Given how active and prolific Zou appears to have been with his awful offending, there is every prospect that he could have offended anywhere in the world,” Mr Southworth said.
“We wouldn’t want anyone to write off the fact they may have been a victim of his behaviour simply by virtue of the fact that you are from a certain place.
“The bottom line is, if you think you may have been affected by Zhenhao Zou or someone you know may have been, please don’t hold back. Please make contact with us.”
Image: Pic: Met Police
Zou used hidden or handheld cameras to record his attacks, and kept the footage and often the women’s belongings as souvenirs.
He targeted young, Chinese women, inviting them to his flat for drinks or to study, before drugging and assaulting them.
Zou was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim, as well as three counts of voyeurism, 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one count of false imprisonment and three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
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Moment police arrest rapist student
Mr Southworth said: “Of those 10 victims, several were not identified so as we could be sure exactly where in the world they were, but their cases, nevertheless, were sufficient to see convictions at court.
“There were also, at the time, 50 videos that were identified of further potential female victims of Zhenhao Zou’s awful crimes.
“We are still working to identify all of those women in those videos.
“We have now, thankfully, had 23 victim survivors come forward through the appeal that we’ve conducted, some of whom may be identical with some of the females that we saw in those videos, some of whom may even turn out to be from the original indicted cases.”
Mr Southworth added: “Ultimately, now it’s the investigation team’s job to professionally pick our way through those individual pieces of evidence, those individual victims’ stories, to see if we can identify who may have been a victim, when and where, so then we can bring Zou to justice for the full extent of his crimes.”
Mr Southworth said more resources will be put into the investigation, and that detectives are looking to understand “what may have happened without wishing to revisit the trauma, but in a way that enables [the potential victims] to give evidence in the best possible way.”
The Metropolitan Police is appealing to anyone who thinks they may have been targeted by Zou to contact the force either by emailing survivors@met.police.uk, or via the major incident public portal on the force’s website.
An 11-year-old girl who went missing after entering the River Thames has been named as Kaliyah Coa.
An “extensive search” has been carried out after the incident in east London at around 1.30pm on Monday.
Police said the child had been playing during a school inset day and entered the water near Barge House Causeway, North Woolwich.
A recovery mission is now said to be under way to find Kaliyah along the Thames, with the Metropolitan Police carrying out an extensive examination of the area.
Image: Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope in North Woolwich leading into the Thames
Chief Superintendent Dan Card thanked members of the public and emergency teams who responded to “carry out a large-scale search during a highly pressurised and distressing time”.
He also confirmed drone technology and boats were being used to “conduct a thorough search over a wide area”.
He added: “Our specialist officers are supporting Kaliyah’s family through this deeply upsetting time and our thoughts go out to all those impacted by what has happened.”
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“Equally we appreciate this has affected the wider community who have been extremely supportive. You will see extra officers in the area during the coming days.”
On Monday, Kerry Benadjaoud, a 62-year-old resident from the area, said she heard of the incident from her next-door neighbour, who “was outside doing her garden and there was two little kids running, and they said ‘my friend’s in the water'”.
When she arrived at the scene with a life ring, a man told her he had called the police, “but he said at the time he could see her hands going down”.
Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope that goes directly into the River Thames and is used to transport boats.
Residents pointed out that it appeared to be covered in moss and was slippery.
Major developers will only deal with one regulator under planning reforms which ministers say will “rewire the system” to get Britain building – all while protecting the environment.
A review by former Labour adviser Dan Corry into Britain’s sluggish system of green regulation has concluded that existing environmental regulators should remain in place, while rejecting a “bonfire of regulations”.
But Mr Corry suggested there might be circumstances in which the government look at changing the wildlife and habit rules inherited from the EU, which protect individual species.
The government has now explicitly ruled out any such change in this parliament.
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Campaigners have questioned whether the changes go far enough and will make a major difference to the rate and scale of building in the UK.
Speaking to Sky News, Environment Secretary Steve Reed insisted that accepting nine of the recommendations from the Corry review would amount to wholesale reform.
The minister said: “We can get a win-win for economic growth and for nature. And that is why we are moving ahead with proposals such as appointing a lead regulator for major developments so that the developers don’t have to navigate the architecture of multiple regulators.
“They just work for a single regulator who manages all the others on their behalf. Simplifying the online planning portal.
“These are huge changes that will save developers billions of pounds and speed up decisions doing damage to the environment.”
Mr Reed insisted that there would be “no more bat tunnels” built, even though the Corry review suggests that more work needs to be done to look again at the relevant guidance.
It says: “Rapidly reviewing the existing catalogue of compliance guidance, including on protecting bats, will identify opportunities to remove duplication, ambiguity or inconsistency.
“Natural England has already agreed to review and update their advice to Local Planning Authorities on bats to ensure there is clear, proportionate and accessible advice available.”
The review will mean:
• Appointing one lead regulator for every major infrastructure project, like Heathrow expansion
• A review on how nature rules are implemented – but not the rules themselves
• Insisting regulators focus more on government priorities, particularly growth
Economist and former charity leader Mr Corry, who led the review, said it shows that “simply scrapping regulations isn’t the answer”.
“Instead we need modern, streamlined regulation that is easier for everyone to use. While short-term trade-offs may be needed, these reforms will ultimately deliver a win-win for both nature and economic growth in the longer run.”
However, Sam Richards from Britain Remade, a thinktank trying to get Britain growing, said that while the steps are welcome, the number of regulators that report to the environment department would remain the same before and after the review. He questioned whether this would have the impact ministers claimed.