What the tories fail to (publicly) mention is that the scheme would be funded by UK Shared Prosperity Funding (so called levelling up), which replaces lost EU Regional Economic Development Programmes funding. The upshot is that the most deprived regions will lose significant levels of financial support and investment.

There are other issues which are conveniently being ignored.

(1)If young people are expected to sign up for military national service, then they need to be paid at the same entry rate as professionals. This seems to be no more than getting the numbers up 'on the cheap;. Another question is will professional recruitment be frozen as a cost cutting exercise.

(2) By making community volunteering an obligation, this devalues the contribution of vast numbers of people who volunteer by their own volition. How will the government ensure the additional recognition of the countless numbers of people who are already making a significant contribution to their communities? If my volunteering was to be labelled as National Service (albeit me being 64), I would probably walk.