Bring Back National Service

National Service is wasted on the young. It's time to bring it back for a group that would properly appreciate its benefits: pensioners.

Like rent controls and moving the capital to somewhere like Stoke-on-Trent, national service is one of those terrible policy ideas that refuses to go away. It gained a brief resurgence in exposure last year, after the think tank Onward published a paper identifying the many issues the yoof of today face, and suggested establishing a new Great British National Service scheme as a solution. A flurry of articles further publicised the proposal , with prominent figures such as leading British philosophe Rory Stewart endorsing the scheme.

Ben Sixsmith’s article ‘Against national civic service’ summarises the surest reasons to oppose the reintroduction of a mandatory national service (Onward proposed an opt-out rather than mandatory regime), including that it may quickly devolve into another form of Woke state indoctrination, which ought to be a prescient worry for a centre-right outfit like Onward. My argument against forcing young people into such a scheme is rather cruder, hinging on the fact that for many it would feel like a colossal waste of precious time, and the last thing I would have wanted to do upon graduating school is spend a year picking litter and wiping elderly bottoms.

However, an idea that persists for so long and continues to inspire lengthy papers to be written in its support must have some merits worth examining. And it is certainly true that, as Onward argue, national service can help to instil a greater sense of civic engagement and belonging, teach new skills, forge national pride, and improve that all-important Mental Health of participants.

The problem is that, thus far, national service has been targeted at the wrong demographic. School leavers are the group with the most verve and energy, and at a unique stage in life when, unencumbered by serious responsibilities, life seems to open up with a virtually endless number of possibilities. Almost any route taken, be it going to university, learning a trade, starting a job, or going travelling, provides an opportunity to make new friends, master new skills, learn about other people, and gain a sense of belonging. This is quite plainly not an age at which national service is necessary to fulfil those goals. And if the priority is ensuring that young people are instilled with a sense of obligation to society, then the many decades they are about to spend bankrolling the state through their taxes ought to suffice. Not to mention the developmentally damaging Covid lockdowns they had to endure for the sake of protecting others.

Instead, the demographic best poised to benefit from and be in need of national service is the one at the other end of the working-life spectrum.

It is important to remember that those approaching retirement today are not the Vera Lynn loving pensioners of yesteryear. They did not endure the Blitz and post-War rations, let alone fight in the War. The were born in the Swinging Sixties. The minority who went to university did so for free. Although they remember the industrial strife of the 1970s and the Winter of Discontent, they entered the workforce during the Big Bang of the 1980s, where it became possible to make loadsamoney in the City. They benefitted from an enormous appreciation in house values, which goes a long way to explaining why a quarter of British pensioners today are millionaires. And yet, despite inheriting such favourable conditions, they seem to have bequeathed pitifully little to the generations succeeding them. It is time for them to give something back, and national service provides the perfect platform.

I am therefore proposing we take Onward’s suggestion of creating a new Great British National Service, but have it be for pensioners. The service would kick-in once a person reaches state pension age (currently 66) and would be around 15 hours a week, running for perhaps two or three years. The activities would be age appropriate (so no military element) and intended to give back to the community at-large. This would include schemes to beautify the country, both by cleaning up the many areas that have degraded into litter-stricken, graffiti covered eyesores, as well as through proactive measures, such as planting street gardens and flower baskets. It would include community work, such as helping out at homeless shelters and foodbanks, and caring for the (even more) elderly. After all, given it is they who will soon require carers to wipe their bottoms, it is important that they get an appreciation for the difficulty and challenges of such work. More sedentary roles would be created for those with mobility issues, who could be made to man charity hotlines or be given undemanding roles in our NHS.

As with Onward’s proposal, the service will not be mandatory – there will be no need to send 66-year-old conscientious objectors to the slammer. However, there would be one key condition: those who refuse to fulfil their service obligations will not receive a state pension. Shirkers will therefore suffer no consequences except for their state pension being delayed by a few years, meaning those who have worked diligently all their lives to save for a tranquil retirement in the Algarve can rest assured that they will not be forcibly yanked from their genteel afternoons on the golf course to help clear graffiti behind train station bike sheds. Instead, they will simply lose their state entitlements for a few years and have to live off their own means (which should be no problem, since this is not a generation of entitled snowflakes we’re talking about!).

The money saved from cutting the state pensions of refuseniks means National Service would likely be fiscally positive, as well as producing tangible value through the projects it would deliver. But it is important to emphasise that this suggestion is not primarily motivated by a desire to help the government coffers; the priority is to help new retirees thrive in their twilight years. As the elder charity AgeUK reports, a significant proportion of elderly people are suffering from loneliness, and the social connections made during national service offer a great opportunity to help remedy this. High levels of inactivity also plague our pensioners, and paying our elderly to sit alone at home watching TV all day does nothing but hasten their physical and mental decline.

National Service for those who have just entered retirement will allow them to meet a large number of local people who similarly now find themselves with newly abundant free time.  Pensioners will thus be able to create new social networks that work colleagues previously provided, helping them to form new bonds within their communities. The activities will equip them with new skills and might reveal a hitherto undiscovered passion for hobbies such as gardening or cooking. It would give them a sense of purpose to fill the meaning that work formerly occupied, and a sense of importance as they realise their worth to their community. And crucially, it gives the generation that fought no wars and built no laudable legacy a final chance to give something back to Britain, and to leave behind a country more clean, beautiful, and caring than the one they have currently created.