The reaction to National Service on here

There are schemes in different areas but normally aimed at university aged young adults and upwards for younger adults to befriend older people.

On the issue of delivering prescriptions, in particular.

which groups do you think need these deliveries? And what do you think they have in common? And how many of those prescriptions carry drugs with a street value?

I'd say that those who need this service are vulnerable in some way. So having someone carrying drugs to your door without the equivalent of a check on their criminal record is a criminal offence waiting to happen, as is leaving an unchecked teenager in charge of drugs that may have a street value.

Imnot, by any means, demonizing all teenagers. I don't think the vast majority of them would do anything harmful. But there are reasons why people who work with potentially vulnerable people, are checked.

And to volunteer is an act of personal intention, not an act mandated by government. It's the very fact that the act of helping is completely voluntarily that gives it it's meaning.

Cameron tried something similar, it crashed and burned very quickly.

I think it’s a fantastic idea.

And yet Child Benefit stops at 18

If it is so good for society and for the people being made to do it, then we should ALL be made to do it. No reason why those turning 18 should be targetted, if it's such a marvellous idea.

Unless of course, it's because they are easy targets and it's nothing at all to do with how 'great' it would be for the country to have an 18 year old spend 25 days making coffee for a cyber analyst and leave with just the barest of skills - because there is bugger all you can really teach someone in that subject who has limited access and only spends 1 weekend a month for a year watching you.

Or how great it would be for the NHS which is stretched beyond function now have to take on thousands of work experience candidates.

Or how useful the suggestion is that if anyone doesn't do this they can never have a public service job in the future - because we have so many people wanting to be teachers it's good to have a way to cut down the candidates.

The military don't want them (Minister of Defence: "it could damage morale, recruitment and retention”).

I actually think back to uni when I was studying about 35 hours a week and working 25 hours a week to help fund it. 60 hours a week of work. Nice to think I would also have to find another day on top of that for unpaid work. Now if they want to do it like other countries and it's part of an 'deal' in which degrees are paid for by the State, that's a whole different matter. But they don't. They want to cancel their failed 'levelling up' scheme to pay for it and have the kids do the actual work. CFs.

No deferments (so no to sharing it one year at a time with another parent of your child), no exemptions for full time work or study...
https://archive.ph/Ol5D6

But my biggest problem with it is that this government cannot organise anything without buggering it up and syphoning off money for their mates. This will just be another way to do that.

They're planning on enforcing it by fining parents for the actions of their adult offspring.

This is true. Sunak could be making much more money in the private sector and wouldn’t have to tolerate all the brickbats.

I've done volunteering that is a regular weekly commitment to some that is ad-hoc.

I would never ask anyone who is involved in hobbies with regular commitments to volunteer regularly on a weekly/bi-weekly or monthly basis but I would encourage them to do something voluntary for that hobby.

So some of the people I've done sport with in the past have been marshals at sporting events as we don't have the time to do something regularly, there as others are now coaches with regular commitments.

I was discussing this earlier with the family. My sister is a secondary/ A-level teacher, her reaction when talking about this was to laugh and say that she has kids they can't even get into lessons, how on earth would they manage to get them doing this, and more importantly who?

Someone else said that they had listen to a phone-in and one caller was a chap in a care home who objected strongly to teenagers coming in to play chess with him.

DBS, supervision etc. The objections are at a ill thought out election sound bite.

This is the sad thing, the kids who want to make something of themselves will do it and the ones who already are spoilt and have parents who let them get out of this sort of thing will just find excuses not to do it. I hope if its enforced RS sticks to his sick note culture views and its not easy to just not involve oneself.

In the politest way possible they already do some sort of service to the public, albeit not national service and some people don't like their views but they take on a lot of responsibility and criticism to try to serve the greater good. I do find a lot of the time when people complain that politicians get it wrong they don't really know how and wouldn't know how to fix it themselves. Ultimately also these people have their own lives and families and will always be entrenched in their own views, but it doesn't mean they aren't attempting to serve the public or contribute well to society.

This is stupid.

Problem is that a huge % of 18 year olds already work at weekends. By all means make DofE etc more accessible but forcing people to volunteer would only work if a broader time to do it eg 16-21.
Not sure how on Earth they'd administer it & supervise all these kids...

Agree with this too! It's like emergency services, they etc constant criticism from people who would never do their jobs and don't know how it works. I see the NS idea as a way of getting young people to subscribe to a civilised society and something to be proud of. The UK is fast becoming a joke of a nation, I love a lot of what Rishi Sunak proposes tbh.

Why should they give up something they enjoy even for one weekend a month?

I'd tell you who need to do community service. Privileged fuckwits in politics who have no clue about people's lives.

He should have called it something else because it conjures up images of war and army training rather than the voluntary work side.

It is a silly idea as many 18 year olds are in minimum wage jobs in sectors like hospitality and retail so work weekends already. Others will be doing healthcare courses that involve placements at anti-social times and this policy ignores the fa t that many 18 year olds are giving back to the community already.

This is interesting on the last period of NS
https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/national-service-experience#:~:text=National%20Service%20was%20introduced%20in,for%20men%20of%20military%20age.
sounds grim in many ways but there was a clear quid pro quo in terms of the skills and opportunities young people got the chance to develop.

How many weekends a month do you give up?

I agree so so so much it would do so many so much good. People in general these days are very self centred.

All political parties rely on volunteers at every election to leaflet people.

Some people like my DP, who is not a member of a political party, will leaflet just to ensure political parties that would target specific people with discriminatory practices don't elected.

Wow give up one weekend a mo th not thatbmuch of an ask but funny how people are getting so outraged ...must be this selfishness.tou speak of OP.